“Because of what is happening in Syria we don’t play any more. I miss my house. I miss my neighbourhood. I miss playing football. I was at a funeral when the rocket struck, there were dead bodies all around and I lost my relatives that day. Dogs ate the dead bodies for two days after the massacre. Please save us.”- Hassan, a 14 year old Syrian refugee in Jordan.
Scenes of devastation in Syria– This is not one isolated story, as Syria is full of millions of Hassans who have witnessed nothing but death and devastation ever since the ISIS invaded Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) came into worldwide notice in June 2014, when they invaded Iraq and declared themselves as a world Caliphate. These pictures trace the atrocities of the self declared ‘supreme Islamic authority’ which now is the major perpetrator of terror attacks across the world.
Yazidis, the community no one cries for– Perhaps the earliest of ISIS atrocities, the Yazidis who are a mainly Kurdish group of Iraq were attacked with their women being sold as sex slaves by thousands and children decapitated. They were forced to flee to Mount Sinjar in the Iraqi north-west region, or face slaughter by an encircling group of Islamic State (Isis) jihadists.
The Yazidi women were captured and sold as ‘sex-slaves’ to those fighting the holy war or ‘jihad.’ Many were sold for a ‘pack of cigarettes’ and were killed on the spot if they refused to go with the ISIS fighters.When death becomes a way of ‘justice’– It brought back the medieval trend of Human crucifixion and beheadings as a form of punishment. Not even leaving children, ISIS has beheaded four Iraqi teenagers for refusing to convert from Christianity to Islam.
The ‘proud’ jihadists.
Public flogging, decapitating children and stoning became the way of justice in ISIS captured areas. Journalists, breast feeding women and teenagers, people were even beheaded for offences like ‘cursing.’ Here Jordanian pilot Muath Safi Yousef Al-Kasasbeh was burned alive after his plane crashed over Syria.
Migrating lives- The mass devastation made people flee their homes and Europe witnessed the ‘migrant crisis’ and pictures of people trying to cross borders illegally or toddlers washing up on shores became common, Aylan Kurdi was one such case which hit the headlines.
While some managed to flee the devastation, some like the picture below could’t.
A nine-year-old Syrian refugee runs up the stairs of the partially-constructed building where she and her family are living in Erbil. They fled from Deir ez-Zur, Syria after a shell hit their neighbour’s house, killing everyone inside. She said the most frightening thing in Syria was the sound made by the tanks. ‘It was even more scary than the sound of planes, because I felt like the tanks were coming for me.’
A life captured through stills and counted through numbers- Numerous attacks over the world have reduced the meaning of life to mere numbers.
Three Syrian siblings, aged between three and eight, register as refugees in UNHCR’s office in Zamalek. Almost 80,000 Syrian refugees have registered in Egypt. These children and their parents came to Egypt three months ago after their Damascus home was destroyed by bombing.
The November 2015, Paris attacks where a series of 13 bomb blasts killed 130 people and wounded hundreds, made the entire world weep for Paris. A concert hall, a football stadium and restaurants were attacked to “avenge the killing of innocent Syrians.”
On 18 March 2015, three militants attacked the Bardo National Museum in the Tunisian capital city of Tunis, and took hostages. Twenty-one people, mostly European tourists, were killed at the scene, while an additional victim died ten days later. Around fifty others were injured in the attack.
The Bastille day celebrations in Nice were ravaged by an attack when a truck drove through a crowd watching fireworks at the Promenade des Anglais, and then exited the vehicle and opened fire.
In closing, here is list by CNN, of all the ISIS attacks and a trail of devastation it has created around the Globe.
