„The calls come to Khaleel’s phone every day, dozens every week: Women and girls, held captive by the Islamic State, beg us to rescue them. Like us, they are Yazidis. And in the wickedest of ironies, they are survivors of genocide, kept alive by the Islamic State to be raped and subjected to sexual slavery. They have heard about our rescue network and reach us on cellphones that they have managed to hide.
We save as many victims as we can and provide care to help rehabilitate them. Thus far, however, we’ve been able to help only a small number of the 3,700 who are enslaved. We believe most are in Mosul, which is Iraq’s second-largest city, the Islamic State’s most important stronghold after Raqqa in Syria and the largest urban center under the Islamic State’s control. So intense is the suffering of these women and girls that they tell us that they want the United States and other countries to attack Mosul, even if the bombs pose a threat to their lives. (…) Every time our phones ring, the voice on the other end could belong to a woman or girl enslaved by the Islamic State. It’s difficult to convey what it feels like to hear the agonized voices. Recently, a woman whom we were unable to help begged us to carry her message to anyone in power. She said, ‚Tell them: »If you can’t save us, please bomb us. We can’t bear to live.«‘“
(Ameena Saeed Hasan/Khaleel Aldakhi: „If you can’t save us, please bomb us‘: The U.S. must help free enslaved Yazidi women in Mosul“)