'Fear of rapes, forced marriages pushing young girls to commit suicide in ISIS captivity'

Baghdad: In another shocking revelation that can send chills down one's spine, the victims who managed to escape the Islamic State captivity have told Amnesty International that many girls are killing themselves after losing hope that they will ever be rescued, reports stated on Tuesday.

As per the reports, many Yazidi women, who were captured by ISIS, are committing suicides by either strangulating themselves with their scarves or by cutting their wrists.

The militant outfit has abducted several women and children from Iraq's Yazidi minority and forced many of them into sexual slavery.

One of the girls, who escaped the captivity, has revealed that a 19-year-old girl named Jilan committed suicide after she felt that she would be raped. “One day we were given clothes that looked like dance costumes and were told to bathe and wear those clothes,” she added. “Jilan killed herself in the bathroom. She cut her wrists and hanged herself. She was very beautiful,” Amnesty quoted her as saying.

In another incident, two girls, in a way to escape forced marriage, tied scarves around their necks and tried to pull away from each other as hard as they could, until one fainted. The fained one couldn't speak for several days, Amnesty stated.

Amnesty also recounted the story of 16-year-old Randa, who was abducted with her family and raped by a man twice her age.

"It is so painful what they did to me and to my family," Randa said.

"Many of those held as sexual slaves are children - girls aged 14, 15 or even younger," Donatella Rovera, Amnesty's senior crisis response adviser, who interviewed dozens of former captives, said in a statement.

(With AFP inputs)