Facing the prospect of continued rape and abuse by ISIS fighters after her capture, a 17-year-old Yazidi girl named Yasmin decided she would make herself unattractive to her captors.
Completely hopeless and distraught, she poured gasoline on herself and then lit a match. The flames scorched her hair, nose, lips and ears and disfigured her once beautiful face before they were extinguished.
“I couldn’t take it anymore and this is what happened to me,” she says.
When German doctor Jan Ilhan Kizilhan found her in 2015, he was shaken by her physical appearance and emotional scars. At first she resisted his efforts to help her, thinking he might be linked to her former captors, The New York Post reports
Yasmin is part of a group of 1,100 women, mainly from the Yazidi religious communities, who escaped ISIS captivity and were sent to Germany for psychological treatment.
In August, 2014, ISIS fighters swept through the area where Yasmin lived. They rounded up the Yazidis into three groups: boys were forced into waging jihad for ISIS, older men were killed if they didn’t convert to Islam, and women and girls sold into sex slavery, according to The Sun.
Thousands of Yazidis attempted to take refuge on a local mountaintop, but the Islamist radicals surrounded them.
The US and its allies flew in humanitarian relief supplies, but many Yazidis died before they could be rescued.
Following the vicious onslaught, no free Yazidis remained in the Sinjar region. A population that once numbered 400,000 had all been displaced, captured or killed, according to The New York Post.
For whatsoever you might be going through. It might be similar to what Yasmin went through, or even worse. God can do exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond, but you’ve got to know who you are. You’ve got to know that He loves you.
It’s never too late for a new beginning in your life. I’m here to tell you that God is a God of new beginnings! Surrender, and let Him take over the healing process. Gain the encouragement you need today through His word.
By Mark Ellis, with additions from Samuel B.
