March 2, 2021

Rania Najim Abed is terrified that ISIL (ISIS) might return to Tel Eskof, her hometown in northern Iraq, 15km (9 miles) from the armed group’s former stronghold of Mosul.

In 2014, Abed, 23, and her Christian family fled the Nineveh plains for Kirkuk to escape ISIL. The group had massacred minorities and established the so-called Islamic caliphate that straddled Iraq and Syria and was about the size of Britain.

Then, in 2016, ISIL attacked Kirkuk. “I was in the medical college in Kirkuk,” she said. “I was so scared that they might abduct me as they had done with so many other girls. Thankfully the Kurdish forces protected us.”

Read more: