The story of a woman from Mosul

A journalist from Mosul told the story of a woman from his hometown who was in her thirties. The mother of four children used to provide for them in addition to their sick father. Although she was an employee in the “Independent High Electoral Commission” in Mosul- center of Nineveh Governorate, she used to lead a very hard life because of her husband’s inability to work and the difficulty in providing his treatment expenses in addition to children schools’ fees and livelihood requirements.

The journalist, who asked to be unnamed, said in a letter he sent to irfaasawtak.com that few months before Daesh’s occupation of Mosul, Bassma’s husband passed away after a long struggle with an incurable disease. The lady had become the sole provider for her children especially after the couple had to sell their house in order to pay for treatment fees. Consequently, Bassma had to rent a cheap apartment that was under construction to have a roof with her children; even if the roof was not safe.

One day, the fate of more than two million people was transformed. Mosul fell to the hands of Daesh. A sequence of incidents and calamities plighted the people of the city. When all government departments were closed and wages of employees, who were not able to flee the city were cut, Bassma lost her job. She had four mouths to feed and a rent to pay to the owner who was claiming his money. So, she was forced to work as a maid in the houses of some well-off people in order to provide for her family whose life had become like hell.

Two months after Daesh’s occupation of Mosul, family members were alarmed by the noise of vehicles’ wheels and screams of masked and armed to the teeth men. They tore the curtain that Bassma used as an alternative to the door of the apartment and took her away from her children after they talked to them for around ten minutes.

The children stayed home alone for a short period. Then, they were taken by a woman from the neighborhood to her home. Bassma found herself standing in front of Daesh’s Sharia (Islamic law) Court. The judge accused her with several charges including backing the government that Daesh considers as Rafidi (those who reject God’s provisions), entrenching that government’s policies by means of working for its electoral commission and antagonizing the organization through her occupation.

Nearly a week after her detention and while Bassma’s children were still weeping their mother’s arrest, two Daesh’s vehicles entered the neighborhood and stopped by her apartment. The children looked at the vehicle expecting to see their mother to run toward her after the long wait. However, a Daesh member stepped out of the vehicle, opened the door, carried a shrouded body, threw it at the apartment threshold and left hastily. The people of the neighborhood gathered around the corpse which turned out to be that of Bassma who was executed with two bullets in the head on the charge of “working  against the Islamic State (Daesh)”.

The journalist went on to say “the people of the neighborhood tried to calm the children down, embrace them and alleviate their grief. Few days later, the owner of the apartment came to take out Bassma and her children’s belongings. However, good relatives contained the situation by taking the children and distributing them over them would not be a burden on a single family. This was the end of the life of a family which was exhausted by circumstances and torn apart by Daesh.”

“The situation of this family must not be worse than that of hundreds of families that were entirely wiped out from existence in a city that has been ruled by Daesh for nearly two years and a half,” he concluded.

Image caption: Iraqi women from Mosul/ AFP

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