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With Ash On Their Faces: Yezidi Women and the Islamic State

This book is the heart wrenching account of  women who suffered in the hands of heinous ISIS members by the British journalist and author Cathy Otten  .


In 2014 this terrorist group attacked Syria and devastated humanity by separating families. They sold yazidi women like cattle and killed men of the family. Yazidis were not considered humans. The account of various women like Leila ,Nadima (names were changed for privacy concerns) who were ordinary locals like you and I , celebrating normal life being daughters , wives ,sisters were kidnapped , sold multiple times to different people , raped a hundred times.All because of the greed of power , religion and for heaven.. They lived in constant fear , they lost their sanity sometimes , their cousins , daughters were made to get separated by the same rules . If someone got caught while trials of escape they were gang raped , bitten almost to death , starved heavily and many were burnt to death .






How the women tried to save the last path to their homes secretly , the way they tried to save their babies , Hide from the guards , thinking all day the ways to escape was really disturbing to even think.  A life with constant brewing fear is no life.

 Kept captive for months ,not feed any food , the stories of these innocent women bring goosebumps  on reading but how strange to think they actually happened in reality . Political disturbances mixed with religious fanaticism that preached about pure heaven but actually  brought hell to Earth , that brought the Zarqawi , the horrendous member who was shown in the viral cruel video of ISIS beheading a journalist to top , was the reign of  a gruesome phase on Earth .



If you have read A thousand Splendid suns, You must pick this book up .That book was about domestic violence in Afghanistan.  This book is in depth account of the women who actually were in the captivity , who were sex slaves , they saw all with their own eyes .



These few innocents who are  lucky to be alive now live with the sad memories of their lost loved ones along with  bone chilling images of the evils still lurking in their minds who tortured them once day and night . 

You may buy it here :