Khadija, who came to Syria from Tunis to live in ISIS Syrian stronghold of Raqqa for three years, told RT that she saw plenty of cruelty and injustice, but no genuine pursuit of religion or Islamic law.
“My husband and I made a huge mistake by coming there. And I advise you not to believe those who say that ISIS is an Islamic state, which preaches Islam and Sharia and lives pursuant to the teachings of Prophet Muhammed and the Koran,” Khadija said.
The terrorists do not tolerate any dissent and opposition to them, she noted.
“Everybody, who takes a stand against them, they behead. And people don’t know when this is going to happen.”
“They are not on righteous path. This is the state of tyranny and Satan. My husband renounced them, and told me to do the same,” Khadija went on to say, adding that she and her husband escaped Raqqa running south to the town of al-Mayadeen and then to Turkey.
But before she made her escape, the young woman got to know ISIS’s darkest side with its ever-depreciating cost of human life, and in particular, of that of the most vulnerable, women and children.
“There was a lot of evil in the places where women live. Children were suffering from scabies, lice. When children were ill, they did not receive treatment at hospital,” Khadija said.
If women were found to be in violation of the strict code of conduct, imposed by ISIS, they were locked up in prison-like detention facilities by female watchers, put in charge of “women dormitories.”
“It was sickening to be there,” Khadija said, recounting stories of women in labor seeking help and receiving indifference at best. Women were routinely denied maternity care and forced to deliver babies on the spot.
One woman bled to death during labor after the dormitory’s superintendent refused to help her.
“That poor woman went to the garden, while bleeding heavily, stayed there till morning in a rainy and cold weather. Nobody paid attention to her. And in the morning her husband came, saw her body lying in the garden and passed by, without paying any attention, as nothing happened, as if [she] were a dog,” Khadija said.