Ayda’s story is very hard to watch. We reported on this first back in April 2015. Since then our friends at VOM Netherlands have met and recorded this insightful interview with Christina’s parents…
Original story
Aida Hanna and her husband desire to find a place of safety for their family. After hearing Aida’s heartbreaking story, which sadly demonstrates the evil and callousness behind these horrific onslaughts against humanity, one can understand.
Her family’s ongoing nightmare also began that day – 6 August – when the city of Qaraqosh was viciously attacked. “I heard the explosions,” she says. “Many people, including children and young people, died in the attack.” For the next ten days, Aida and her blind husband Baddu fearfully remained at home with their little three-year-old daughter Christina, not knowing what would happen next. Thankfully, their three older children had already escaped to safety.
All of a sudden, as Aida explains, a loud announcement from ISIS abruptly broke the silence: “From the loudspeakers, we heard ‘Allah Akbar’ [meaning ‘God is great’] and then the ISIS people announced that all of the Christians needed to leave the area. If we didn’t leave, they said, ‘We are going to kill you.’ They also said, ‘You can stay if you accept Islam; do that or leave.’”
“They have taken our daughter!”
The militant Muslim group then proceeded to round up all of the remaining Christians, bringing them to the community’s health centre where they briefly separated the men from the women. After noticing that little Christina was being watched by a member of ISIS, Aida held onto her young daughter tightly. “Suddenly one of the ISIS people just took my daughter from me. I started crying, and my husband asked me what had happened. [Being blind, he couldn’t see what had just taken place]. I said, ‘They have taken our daughter!’