German defense minister meets Islamic State victims in Iraq

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer concluded her three-day tour of the Middle East on Wednesday, full of admiration for the women and girls from the Yazidi minority group in northern Iraq who were enslaved and abused by “Islamic State” militants.

“These women have witnessed unspeakable things,” Kramp-Karrenbauer said.

The recently installed defense minister was wary of history repeating itself as she said: “They need more targeted help so that they are not victims of this terrorism a second time.”

The fight against IS has not finished, the German politician admitted.

“This was a very emotional moment for me this morning, and that alone is a good reason to say: We should continue acting here in this region,” she said.

• New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters

  Hoping for help

  Perwin Ali Baku escaped the Islamic State after more than two years in captivity. The 23-year-old Yazidi woman was captured together with her 3-year-old daughter. “I don’t feel right,” she says, sitting on a mattress on the floor of her father-in-law’s small hut in a northern Iraq refugee camp. “I still can’t sleep and my body is tense all the time.”

• New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters

  Tormenting flashbacks

  When Perwin hears a loud voice, she cringes at the thought of her captors. She hopes for help at the newly established institute in Iraq, part of an ambitious project funded by the German state of Baden Württemberg that has already brought 1,100 women who had escaped Islamic State captivity to Germany for psychological treatment.

• New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters

  Kabarto refugee camp

  Members of Germany’s 100,000 strong Yazidi community reached out to help the women – and the Baden Württemberg state legislature approved a €95-million program ($106 million) over three years to bring women abused by the IS to Germany. Now, help is on the way on-site in Iraq.

• New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters

  No trauma treatment – yet

  As fighting rages between Iraqi forces and the IS in Mosul only about 75 km from Dohuk, the number of victims that make it to freedom increases daily. 26 psychiatrists work in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq with its population of 5.5 million and more than 1.5 million refugees and internally displaced people. None specialize in treating trauma.

• New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters

  Hope on the horizon

  German trauma specialist Jan Kizilhan, who has Yazidi roots but immigrated to Germany at the age of 6, is the driving force behind the new institute. The program will train local mental health professionals to treat people like Perwin and thousands of Yazidi women, children and other Islamic State victims.

• New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters

  Training psychotherapists

  The idea is to train 30 new professionals for three years and then extend the program to other regional universities: in ten years’ time, there could be more than 1,000 psychotherapists in the area. Students will receive a double master’s degree in psychotherapy and psychotraumatology according to German standards, and training from both local and German professors.

• New hope for Yazidi women tortured by IS fighters

  Duty to help

  Kizilhan has interviewed thousands of women in refugee camps – and more recently, prospective students for the program’s inaugural class: “We are talking about general trauma, we are talking about collective trauma and we are talking about genocide. That’s the reason we have to help if we can – it’s our human duty to help them.”

  Author: Nadine Berghausen

Kurdish sacrifices 

During her visit to Erbil, the region’s capital and the most populated city in Iraqi Kurdistan, Kramp-Karrenbauer also met with Kurdish Interior Minister Rebar Ahmed.

After her meeting with Ahmed, the German Defense Ministry quoted Ahmed on Twitter as saying, “Our plea to the international community and Germany: strengthen your presence here in the region.”

Read more: Syrian Kurds hand over IS children to Germany

Kramp-Karrenbauer expressed her gratitude to the Iraqi Kurdish fighters for their help in fighting the militants.

“We have a joint goal. This goal is to defeat the Islamic State terrorism in the long term,” she said.

The defense minister, also known by her initials, AKK, concluded that Germany would not forget the sacrifices made by Iraqi Kurds. “You have lost lives and fought this fight, not only for the security of your own region, but for the security of Europe and Germany as well,” she said.

The 56-year-old visited Jordan, in addition to Iraq, as part of her first trip to the region and said the mission was to help her gain a better understanding of the anti-terrorist mission the German troops are involved in on the ground there. 

jsi/sms (dpa, AFP, Reuters)

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