Swedish Teen Rescued From ISIS in Iraq: 'It Was a Really Hard Life'

by REUTERS


IRBIL, Iraq — A Swedish teenager rescued from ISIS said life under the militants was "really hard" and that she was duped into going there by her boyfriend.

In her first interview since Kurdish special forces recovered her in northern Iraq,
the 16-year old told a Kurdish TV channel she had met her boyfriend in mid-2014 after dropping out of school in Sweden.

IRBIL, Iraq — A Swedish teenager rescued from ISIS said life under the militants was "really hard" and that she was duped into going there by her boyfriend.

In her first interview since Kurdish special forces recovered her in northern Iraq, the 16-year old told a Kurdish TV channel she had met her boyfriend in mid-2014 after dropping out of school in Sweden.

 ISIS Using Social Media and Violence to Recruit 2:00

"First we were good but then he started to look at ISIS videos and speak about them and stuff like that," she told Kurdistan 24. "Then he said he wanted to go to ISIS and I said, 'OK, no problem,' because I didn't know what ISIS means, what Islam is — nothing."

The couple set off from Sweden in late May last year and made their way across Europe by bus and train until reaching the Turkish border province of Gaziantep. They later crossed into Syria.

From there, ISIS militants ferried them by bus with other men and women to the city of Mosul in neighboring Iraq and provided them with a house. There was no electricity or running water.

"I didn't have any money either — it was a really hard life," she said, looking relaxed and healthy. "When I had a phone I started to contact my mom and I said, 'I want to go home.'"

The teenager, who was rescued Feb. 17, is currently in Iraq's Kurdistan region and will be handed over to Swedish authorities.

The Mystery of Women and ISIS 2:05

Smiling occasionally, the girl compared life under ISIS to that in Europe: "In Sweden we have everything, and when I was there, we didn't have anything."

Security services estimate that hundreds of Western men and women have left home to join ISIS since the group overran large parts of Iraq and Syria in June 2014.

SOURCE ;Nbcnews.com