Victory hobbles towards the finish line, his weary body beaten and ravaged by the war that has waged for 9 months. As he pushes through the narrow winding paths, clambering over rubble, burnt out vehicles, and rotting corpses, people reach out to him, calling his name. The finish line is in his sight but he’s gasping for breath, not sure if he can find the strength to take those last few steps. He focuses hard as hundreds upon hundreds of empty eyes stare back at him, their bodies broken, their mouths silenced, their hearts desolate. He stumbles and falls into the dust…
It’s hard to imagine anyone jumping for joy or doing a celebratory dance in the city of Mosul, where thousands of people have suffered in ways that are too terrible to imagine. With each passing day the atrocities increase. Hundreds of civilians, most of them children, who have been affected by war, wait to be taken to safety, with no idea what tomorrow holds.
There is nothing ‘nice’ about war. It’s bloody, aggressive, destructive and deadly, it’s effects are life-altering and often irreversible. Mosul’s victim’s stories are dreadful but not surprising. But something surprising and disturbing about this war is the number of women who have sacrificed their lives as suicide bombers.
It has been reported by Iraqi security officials that 38 women have blown themselves up in Mosul, attempting to kill security forces and civilians. 20 of those female suicide attacks have been reported in the last week. One particular story which has made headlines around the world was of a woman carrying a baby who was caught on camera by al-Mawsleya TV, an Iraqi TV station, just moments before she detonated the bomb that was concealed under her hijab. It killed her and the baby instantly, and injured a few other people around them.
On images captured by the TV station’s cameras, the woman’s face is clearly visible. It’s difficult not to stare at her eyes and wonder what was going through her mind at that very moment – baby in one hand, detonator is the other. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that the minute the bomb went off, she and her child would die. Is the faint smile on her face a hint that she is proud of what she is about to do, and believes that it will bring her great honor and reward in paradise?
“Jihadist brides” is how these women have become known and one news article speculates that they want to play more of an active role in jihad alongside their husbands and, rather ironically, that they are no longer satisfied to simply stay home and “take care of the children”…
Louise Carter
