‘Nine-year-old pregnant’ after being raped by ISIS fighters

A nine-year-old girl from the Yazidi ethnic minority is pregnant after raped by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants, according to an aid worker quoted by a UK daily.

Due to her age and weak physical condition, the unnamed girl is likely to die during childbirth, aid workers say.

“The abuse she has suffered left her mentally and physically traumatized,” said Yousif Daoud, a Canadian-based aid worker, according to UK paper Express. “Even a caesarean section is dangerous.”

The girl, who was reportedly raped by 10 different men, is one of over 200 Yazidi women and children who were released this week after eight months captivity in the hands of ISIS.

The aid worker said that many of the women and girls may have been released by the group so they would be shamed when they saw their families again. Many told tales of torture and abuse by ISIS militants.

“If they are married, their husbands won’t take them back if they are pregnant. And it’s clear that the babies will never be accepted.”

The Yazidis, who are neither Muslims nor Arabs, practice a unique faith and are considered infidels by ISIS.

After negotiations with tribal sheikhs by the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces, the group of Yazidis were freed last week in Nineveh province, northwest of Kirkuk, but did not make their way to a Kurdish-controlled territory in the country’s north until two days later.

The mass release of the Yazidis, kidnapped in Nineveh last year, is the second of its kind, after some 200 mainly elderly people were set free in January.