Kurdish fighter who gave up being a student to fight Isis describes horrors she witnessed | Middle East | The Independent
28 Maggio 2016
Joanna Palani fought with the YPG and the Peshmerga in Syria and Iraq. AFP/Getty Images
independent.co.uk – Kurdish fighter who gave up being a student to fight Isis describes horrors she witnessedJoanna Palani witnessed children being sexually assaulted by Isis soldiers – Sadie Levy Gale
A woman who gave up her life as a student to fight Isis militants in Syria has described the horrors she witnessed in the country.
Joanna Palani, 23, left college in November 2014 to ‘fight for human rights for all people’ with the People’s Protection Unit (the YPG) for six months, before joining the Peshmerga for an additional six months.
The Kurdish fighter claims she saw children being sexually abused by Isis fighters.
She said she was shocked to discover a ‘holding house’ in a village her battalion liberated near Mosul, Iraq where young girls were locked up and sexually abused by fighters.
In an interview with Vice, she said: “Even though I am a fighter it is difficult for me to read about how a 10-year-old girl is going to die because she is bleeding from a rape.”
She told how one 11-year-old victim was left pregnant with twins after being raped, and later died in hospital.
Ms Palani learnt to use a gun aged nine and trained other female Kurdish fighters.
She said ISIS fighters are “very easy to kill” in comparison to Assad’s soldiers, who she found “very well-trained and are specialist killing machines”.
On her first night in the front line she witnessed her comrade being shot dead in front of her by a sniper.
But when Ms Palani returned to Copenhagen on leave she received an email from Kurdish police informing her that her passport was no longer valid.
She said if she returned to Syria or Iraq she could be imprisoned for up to six years under new laws designed to stop Isis supporters joining the terror group in conflict zones.
Ms Palani is now deciding whether to give up her passport and rejoin her battalion or remain in Copenhagen.
She told Vice: “These small girls, the sex slaves, I can’t as a human being—but especially as a Kurdish girl—I can’t ignore them. I can’t say I’m doing good in Denmark, so never mind what they are doing to these girls in Kurdistan.”