Children who refuse to fight for ISIS are being bullied, beaten and killed in Northern Iraq, cites multiple officials. Recent accounts point to 600-plus child abductions, however nearly 200 have managed to escape alive. Recent media coverage is now trying to help reveal how much psychological assistance the children refugees need.
CNN's Nima Elbagir reported about 11-year-old Nouri, who was abducted with his family and taken to the ISIS camp in Tel Aafar in northern Iraq. He revealed to CNN when he kept declining to join other boys for training, ISIS fighters broke his leg in three places.
He also witnessed militants killing other children.
It turned out having a badly broken leg was a good development, because when Nouri's leg healed, he could only limp. ISIS deemed him "useless," but rather than shoot him, they allowed his grandmother to come and carry him home.
His 5-year-old brother Saman also was released, however, daily beatings from ISIS fighters have utterly traumatized him, states CNN.
Saman reportedly wakes up screaming in the night and suffers from seizures. As CNN speaks to his grandparents, he jumps and asks first one, then the other: "Are you going to beat me?"
The boys' parents and baby brother remain in captivity.
Nouri said soldiers asked boys to go with them for the training. Nouri spoke in a low voice to CNN, stopping to take deep breaths between short sentences. He stares at the ground or looks up to the tent ceiling. "At first we refused to go because we were afraid. They asked me to go to the mountain and I refused again, then they broke my leg. That saved me. The other children were taken by force."
Nouri's grandmother, Gowra Khalaf, said now he doesn't go anywhere. "Just sits in the tent close to me." He also wakes up in the night, screaming that he's being choked.
Saman appeared traumatized by the sound of rain beating on the roof of the tarpaulin tent he quickly crawled in his grandfather's lap.
