December 1, 2021 • 40 mins
Fahrinisa Campana
Very little is known about the Yazidi Genocide and Fahrinisa plans to change that with this podcast. She combines beautiful writing with high-quality audio to tell a deeply reported and emotionally compelling story about a little-known, yet incredibly high-stakes, topic. By focusing on the complicated figures in a single family, this podcast has the potential to build awareness about a complex geopolitical issue through these relatable human stories.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to season two of the Next Great Podcast. My
Heart Radio and Tongle have once again teamed up to
bring you another round of amazing and unique voices. We're
excited to share these ten incredible podcasts with you and
need your help crowning the winner. Check out the pilots
and be sure to vote for your favorite at Next
(00:24):
Great podcast dot com. Today's entry is almof Coude The
Missing by Farreness of Campana. Very little is known about
the Zity genocide, and Farrenisa plans to change that with
this podcast. She combines beautiful writing with high quality audio
to tell a deeply reported and emotionally compelling story about
(00:45):
a little known yet incredibly high stakes topic. By focusing
on the complicated figures in a single family, this podcast
has the potential to build awareness about a complex geopolitical
issue through these relatable human stories. I'm Pharreneesa Campana from
(01:09):
New York and you're listening to the pilot episode of
The Missing as part of the Next Great Podcast competition
from I Heart Radio and Tongle. Oh wow, is this
little boy him? M? Hmm, yeah, it's him. M. I'm
(01:37):
paging through a ring binder of old photographs. Well, there
are copies of old photographs. Some photos are of young girls,
others of young boys, and some photos are of families,
like the one I'm looking at now. In this photograph,
there appears to be a young mother and her husband.
(01:59):
There's standing with their four children, three sons and one daughter.
There is ity, and this photo was taken some time
before two fourteen, before Isis arrived in northern Iraq and
tried to wipe out these cities. The young mother is
looking directly into the camera with just a hint of
a smile. These cities don't often smile for photographs. It's
(02:20):
just not their thing. The little boy in her arms
is looking down. He's way too young to understand what
a camera is and that he should be looking at it.
The photo is pretty grainy, pretty blurry actually, but the
people in it are unmistakable. This is Goswan's family. This
(02:45):
is their father, this is their mother aff this is
Gazwan at None, this is Mediha, and this is Badizan.
He's older than his picture now. He's with dash Is
the Arabic acronym for Isis, the Islamic state of Iraq
(03:08):
and Syria. What Bazad is saying is that this little
boy Barson is still with ISIS. ISIS began its rampage
across northern Iraq two months ago. They called the land
they've seized an Islamic state, and they've targeted anyone who
(03:32):
isn't a sunny Muslim. But the Yazidis have been singled
out because the militants believe their devil worshipers. Showing reports
described isol militants rounding up families, conducting mass executions, and
enslaving Yazdi women. In the early morning hours of August third,
(04:01):
two thousand fourteen, the self proclaimed Islamic state entered Sinjar,
which is a region in northern Iraq nestled into the
base of Mount Sinjar. It's home to the Cities, an
ethno religious minority who have just experienced one of the
world's most recent genocides. On that day, ISIS began killing
(04:24):
and kidnapping thousands of year city men, women and children.
As they rampaged across Iraq. They left behind a trail
of dead bodies. Hundreds and hundreds of year city men
were slaughtered and piled up on the sides of roads,
in ditches and in mass graves. ISIS took only the
(04:44):
women and children with them that day, Sabine had It
was early in the morning when Isis arrived. The time
was around six o'clock. Wanted to escape from ISIS. We
(05:04):
tried to escape, but they captured us. They fired bullets
above our heads, and I heard them say to people, surrender,
for we shall harm you. I knew they were lying
to us. The voice you've just heard is that of
(05:24):
Kasawan Irahim Khalaf. The photo I'm holding is of him
and his family before ISIS had established a so called caliphate.
At its peak, ISIS claimed the caliphate covered over two
hundred and eighty two square kilometers across the rock in Syria.
That's roughly the size of Ecuador, and it had a
population of some ten million people. Because one was only
(05:50):
eight years old when he and his family were captured,
along with hundreds of other yeusities. This is the story
of families escaped from ISIS and their search for justice.
(06:11):
When news broke that a caravan of ISIS fighters was
approaching their village in pickup trucks, Oswin's father, Ibrahim, wasn't
home from work yet. Ibrahim was at the local hospital
that morning, where he worked as a cleaner, and by
the time he did return home, traffic on the only
road to safety was already at a standstill. The family
(06:35):
quickly threw some things in bags and jumped in their car.
As they waited in a slow crawl of traffic inching
towards safety, their car broke down. Soon Isis arrived. Each
truck was loaded with dozens of men wielding semi automatic weapons.
They were dressed all in black and flying the now
(06:56):
infamous black and white ISIS flag. They quickly began rounding
up whoever they could find. When ISIS arrived in our village,
(07:18):
they were in white Toyota cars. They were wearing black
clothes with masks on their faces. They had weapons on
their shoulders, They had their kind of ISIS vests. They
had their own flags on their cars. They came and
kidnapped us. We were scared and terrified. Even now when
(07:40):
I talk about it, I get very scared. This is
cas Ban's older sister Mediha. During the ISIS assault that day,
thousands of the cities made it up Mount Sinjar to safety.
They stayed there for several days without food and water
in the blinding August heat, as the world watched on immobile.
(08:01):
An entire week passed before US forces moved into action. Finally,
on August ten, US backed Syrian Kurdish forces carried out
several strategic air strikes. This enabled upwards of twenty to
thirty thousand Yaziti Iraqis to flee over the border into
Syria into relative safety. They were later rescued by Kurdish forces,
(08:25):
who provided shelter for them back in Dahuk in the
semi autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq. Had Graswin's family made
it up the mountain that day, their lives would be
very different today, but they didn't, and this is now
their story. Sancho who basa Ambasa. The first time we
(08:49):
tried to escape together, we went to a forest. We
were waiting for the smuggler there. The smuggler didn't come,
so we returned to our homes and we tried to
escape again. Two days later. The family waited for two
days and then try it again. This time the smuggler
(09:11):
did show up, but by then there were so many
other people waiting to be rescued that there wasn't enough
room for everyone in the two cars. Oh, but after
that they called us and they said that they would
come and take us that night or the next day,
(09:32):
but they didn't come. After that, my father went to
a shepherd and asked him to bring some food and
water to us. He said, okay, I'll bring it to you,
but he went to Isis and told them about us.
(09:53):
At first, when the family was taken into captivity, they
were kept together, but it wasn't long before Isis of
thettants started forcibly separating the remaining men from the women
and children, and after their failed attempt to escape, the
siblings were then separated from their mother and finally from
each other and sold to four different ices families in Iraq, Syria,
(10:17):
and Turkey. Yea. Then they separated all of us and
later we were tortured and severely beaten, and nine nine
on the ninth of September, I lost contact with my mother, brothers,
sister and father. I never saw them again, at least
(10:42):
until we were rescued. Now it's only the three of us.
As One was the first of the four children to
be sold to an Isis fighter. He was immediately taken
first to Mosl and then over the border into Syria.
As One's older sister and younger brother were sold soon
(11:02):
after that. The youngest sibling, however, Barson, disappeared. He was
only two at the time. Their parents, aff and Ibraheim
were never heard from or seen again. They are two
of the nearly three thousand year cities who are still missing,
(11:25):
and with little international support, search and rescue efforts have
largely fallen to local, underground networks of volunteer rescuers. Yeah,
my name is I'm This is Bazad who you heard
from at the beginning of this episode. He's one of
(11:45):
the volunteer rescuers who has dedicated the past several years
of his life to rescuing Ziti is still in captivity.
Come on. After what happened in Sinjad in August two
Thousan fourteen, I was trying to communicate with the families
(12:05):
and areas controlled by ISIS. I started communicating with hundreds
of survivors. We heard the stories of those who were
still being held captive by ISIS and of their suffering.
We then set about making plans to locate the missing.
I documented everything I knew about ISIS. Over the nearly
(12:33):
seven years since the genocide occurred, Bazzard and his team
have been creating files for the captured and missing usities.
It's slow work, but without these records it would be
nearly impossible to keep track of those who are still missing.
The work is not only emotionally taxing, it carries huge
(12:54):
risks for those involved. If Buzzard wants information about us
it is still being held captive by ISIS, he has
to infiltrate their group. He has to become one of them,
or at least appear to be one of them online
and in messaging apps. After the initial assault in August
(13:19):
two fourteen, it didn't take long for ISIS fighters to
set up an online slave market where they could buy
and sell girls and women as sabaya's or sex slaves.
Bazzad knew he needed access to the slave market, so
he went undercover. While working on documentation, we heard that
(13:43):
ISIS was using groups to communicate with each other to
sell people in the Caliphate market. Because they were calling it.
I managed to join the groups with a fake name.
I named myself with names similar to theirs, like Abu
Abdullah and Abu Ahmad. Thus I infiltrated the groups and
(14:06):
listened to them and knew what was happening. Once he
gains access to these groups. Bazad and his team then
pretend to be ISIS militants interested in buying girls and
sometimes boys, to be their slaves. Before a rescue you
can even begin, though, the rescuers have to learn the
(14:26):
identity of the person being sold and whether or not
they have family or relatives looking for them. In order
to do this, Bazzad downloads the photographs of ziti Is
being sold on telegram group chats, and he then circulates
these photos within the Ziti community, hoping that someone recognizes them.
(14:47):
If they're able to confirm the captive's identity, Bazad approaches
the ISIS militant selling the girl or boy and asks
how he can go about purchasing them and for what price.
Then buzz Sad takes the riskiest step in the process.
He asks for the location of the ISIS militant in
order to collect the person from him. If the ISIS
(15:11):
militant remains unsuspecting and provides his address, Bazad's team springs
into action, and so we were given the address and
later we would mark the exact location where the boys
or the girls were located. Then some civilian from that
(15:33):
area would be told to go and see the house.
Their mission was to watch the house and make use
of any opportunity to enter the house, and then show
the captive either pictures or a video of their family.
They would tell them that they had come for their rescue.
(15:54):
The following step was for that civilian we sent to
take the victim to a safer place with an ice
Is territory. After that, smugglers were told to get them
out of the Isis area and bring them to Kurdish territories. Finally,
they were brought back to Iraq and they were taken
(16:16):
to their families, whether in the Hook or in Saint
John m H. A rescue mission like this typically takes
several weeks or months. Even sometimes the rescue mission fails
(16:40):
and the captive disappears back into oblivion. There are also
times when Bazard's cover is blown and an Isis militant
discovers that he's not, in fact one of them. That's
when the threats start coming in. My information reached Isis
and I was sent messages in which I was threatened.
(17:03):
They threatened me by telling me they could locate me,
but I did not allow this to make me give
up in searching for abductees. It was difficult for me
since Isis was at its peak. Talking with the desperate
victims gave me reason to go on in spite of
the difficulties when this happens. Butzot is more cautious. He
(17:30):
lays low for a bit, changes his norm to gear,
but he never never stops looking for is Ity survivors. Well,
one of I was really careful dealing with them. I
changed my name from time to time to a known
isis name of a person I had talked to before
(17:51):
in a different area. This is what I did for
safety reasons. Azad is only one of many such volunteer rescuers.
He alone has worked on dozens of rescues. One of
these rescues was of Kaswan, who he managed to bring
back in July two thousand sixteen after a lengthy ten
(18:15):
month cross border rescue mission. It was in one of
these telegram group chats where he came across a photo
of Kaswan for sale. I've rescued many people, of all
of them, only Gazwan remembers me. I worked hard for
(18:37):
ten months before Gazwan was rescued. When he got out
of the car, he went and hugged his family. He
was telling them, don't cry, for I've returned. Kaswan's rescue
was both complicated and expensive. The ISIS militant who bought
him in two thousand fourteen had taken him over the
(18:58):
border into Syria uh which made it much more difficult
to reach him. In Syria, ras One was being trained
as a Caliphate cub, a child soldier. Typically, Caliphate cubs
were children recruited within ISIS held territories. They were the
young children of active ISIS militants. They were also orphaned
(19:21):
children of ISIS militants who had been killed in battle.
But many Caliphate cubs were also the kidnapped children of
the cities who were then systematically brainwashed and indoctrinated into
the ISIS ideology. Haswan was only one of thousands of
these city child soldiers. One. We were taught almost horrifying things.
(19:45):
We were taught how to kill and to captate others.
And I was also taught how to drive a car
so that I could kill myself by committing suicide. To
clarify here, has One was being taught how to drive
a car for the soul whole purpose of becoming a
suicide bomber. He was being trained to fight against the enemy,
(20:07):
the nonbelievers, his own people, the asities, and just a
reminder as Juan was only about eight or nine years
old at the time. When I was in the hands
(20:29):
of ISIS, they were torturing me and hitting me hard.
Some parts of my body still feel the pain of
this torture. It was so difficult for me to refuse
them and to say no. I was there for a
year and a half, Adnan for three years, my sister
for four years. My brother Barzan is still missing. He's
seven years old now. Up to this very moment, I
(20:49):
have no idea where my little brother is. I've missed him.
After two years in captivity and being trained as a
child soldier to kill his own people, Haswan was sold
to Bazad, who was posing as an ISIS militant. On
July two thousand sixteen, Bazad secured Gaswan's freedom with eleven
(21:15):
thousand U S. Dollars. One year after Gazwan was returned home,
his sister Mediha and brother Adnan were also rescued. The
three of them now live with one of their uncles
in a camp in the Kurdistan region of Iraq Hall
in my camp by that Nata Oh, we're living under
(21:37):
bad circumstances in the camp. Our life is such a
terrible life here. There are too many vicious dogs in
the camp. Sometimes we don't have enough food in the camp.
There's not enough space to care for anything, including sheep
or chickens. If our mother had returned, everything would have
(22:00):
been fine. Bazad is also one of the rescuers now
working on finding the siblings missing brother Barson. To do this,
he first needs to create a missing person's file for Barzon,
in the same way he did for all the other
year cities he's rescued. In this file, he'll include details
(22:21):
like where Barson was last seen, by whom or with
whom he was last seen, and what he was wearing
when he disappeared. Barzon was only two years old when
he went missing in two thousand and fourteen. It's now
been five years. If he's still alive, he probably isn't
aware of what has happened to him, and he certainly
(22:43):
won't recognize his real family. So instead, his family must
think of ways that they will be able to recognize him.
There are some signs through which we can recognize Barson.
There's a mole at the back of his neck that
he's had since he was born. He used to wear
an earring in one of his ears. This is Omar,
(23:06):
the siblings uncle on their father's side. They have been
living with him, his two wives, and four of his
many children since they were each rescued from Isis captivity.
It's a warm spring afternoon in May two nineteen, and
Bazad is visiting Omar and Gazwan at the Kadia camp
in Dohoq, where the family now lives. He's heard a
(23:30):
rumor that someone in Gazwan's extended family might know what
happened to Barzon all those years ago. Rumors often don't
lead anywhere in these rescues. The more people the information
passes through, the more convoluted it gets. But still he
has to check out every lead, even if it's just
a rumor. And he news about Barizan. We know Barons
(23:55):
with someone whose name. We also know he was with
a family from tal Afar. We've gotten a picture of
him from his Facebook page. It's here with us. His
tribe is called al Kareem in Talafar, a Turkmen, Turkmen
and Ya cities have coexisted in the region for hundreds
of years as friends, neighbors, and sometimes even as blended families,
(24:19):
But with the arrival of ISIS in two thousand fourteen,
many Sunni Turkmen quickly joined rank and turned against their yusity,
neighbors and friends. Knowing the ethnicity and the tribe of
this family is important. Knowing this means knowing where the
family might have ended up if they're still alive. Iraqi
(24:43):
forces say they've retaken almost all of Talafar Isles stronghold
in the country's northwest. The Iraqi military said in the
statement on Sunday, one week since operations were launched in
tal Afar, and Iraqi joined forces advanced to the center
of the district, breaking most of dashes defense lines. Iraqi
(25:04):
soldiers walked the streets of tal Afar, in a neighborhood
freshly liberated from the Islamic State group. They're searching for
any dangers the militants may have left behind. Three years
(25:27):
after tal Afar fell to ISIS, it was liberated by
Iraqi coalition forces in August two thousand seventeen. Many local
ISIS fighters were either killed during this battle or captured
but many more were also able to flee to Turkey
via Syria. If this family is still alive, there's a
(25:48):
strong possibility they're now in Turkey. I know about them.
All people from Tali far and went to Turkey. I
expect that he's in Turkey. Did they go to Ankara?
Many families are said to have left for Turkey. Barizan's
(26:09):
cases so difficult. The only way is to search for
and find the family here is with Iraqi. Turkmen ended
up in Turkey, not only because of the proximity of
the two countries. Turks and Turkmen share ethnic, religious, and
linguistic ties. In fact, most Turkmen in Iraq today are
(26:30):
the descendants of the Ottoman soldiers, traders, and civil servants
who arrived in Iraq from Anatolia during the time of
the Ottoman Empire. Although Iraqi Turks are commonly referred to
as Turkmen, they're not actually directly related to the Turkmen
people of Turkmenistan. They also don't identify as such, and
(26:51):
mostly adhere to a Turkish heritage and identity. It's not surprising, then,
that so many Turkmen ISIS militants fled to Turkey in
two thousand seventeen. It's also not surprising that their presence
is not unwelcome in Turkey. What is surprising is that
it's still unclear whether or not the Turkish government is
(27:13):
aware that many of these incoming Turkmen who have claimed
asylum there our former ISIS members, and that many of
them have brought their yusity captives with them. Some of
our relatives were their neighbors. They had heard them saying
that they were going to lead for Turkey. We know
many things about that ISIS member, like he had no
(27:34):
kids despite having two wives. He was responsible for military
equipments in tal Afar. Here Omar is sharing all the
details that he knows because any detail about Barson or
the family who they think kidnapped him is important. Knowing
what job the head of this Turkmen family performed for
ISIS can help lead to other information about him, including
(27:58):
his real name, where he was living, and who else
he's related to. In tal Afar. We also know by
what name Barson was called with them, what's his name,
but they call him abay to there is that man
still alive. We have no idea. So far he's not
been found online for some time. As Omar is talking
(28:22):
to Bazad, Raswan pulls out his phone and shows Bazad
a photo that he says they found on Facebook. They
found it on the now inactive page of the man
they say took Barson. The boy in the photo looks
to be around six years old, and he looks exactly
like Gaswan and add Nan, there's little doubt that this
(28:44):
boy is their brother Barzon. In the photo, he's standing
in front of a flower shop. It must be February
around Valentine's Day because the shop windows are filled with
already made bouquets of flowers. There's a large white Teddy
Bear air and a red heart shaped balloon that says
I Love You in Turkish. Razwan swipes right on his
(29:09):
phone and more photos appear. In another one, Barson is
wearing a Spider Man track suit and is standing in
front of a fountain with a waterfall. He is staring
into the camera blankly. While Roswan is showing bazat these photos,
Media looks over his shoulder and begins to explain, this
(29:34):
is the photo of my brother Barson. He was so
young at the time. Now he doesn't know whether he's
Yazeedi or Muslim. He's grown up. I miss him very much.
This relative that Omar says gave them information about this
Turkmen family is his nephew the siblings cousin on the
(29:56):
father's side of the family. His name is Bashar and
he's in his early thirties. Bashar claims that in two
thousand fourteen, his neighbors were a local Turkmen family who
had joined Isis. According to Bashar, they are the ones
who kidnaped Barzon. And when Bashar says this family were
(30:18):
his neighbors, what he means is that while he himself
was being held captive by another ISIS militant, they were
living next door to this Isis family. There were only
neighbors because Bashar too was an ISIS captive. Bashar survived
captivity unlike hundreds of other Yisti men from Talafar, and
(30:40):
this is because, according to him, he willingly and convincingly
converted to Islam. His wife and children did as well. This,
he claims, is the only thing that saved him and
his family from an otherwise certain death. Shrewd him. M hmm. Well,
(31:03):
first of all, I had to say yes to conversion.
When they order you to do good, you must. When
you are told to do bad, you have to. Secondly,
when someone wants the safety and interests of his family members,
they will agree to do whatever the enemy says. The
important thing was to save your family. I would prefer
(31:24):
listening to what they tell me than seeing my family
members being killed or sold. For sure, I will not
be doing it with intent. I'll do it to save
my family and myself. Converting to Islam alone wasn't always
a sure fire protection against execution. The reason I say
this is because in April two fifteen, many city families
(31:47):
in the same neighborhood as Bashar, who had also converted
to Islam to save themselves, tried to escape Isis captivity.
And while many of these families succeeded, many more failed.
After this, between three hundred and five hundred U city
men were executed in Talifar, while the women and children
(32:09):
were quickly sold. They had become a liability to Isis.
Coalition forces were ramping up air strikes on Isis because
the cities who had made it out of captivity were
giving up their locations. So not only did Bashar manage
to avoid execution during this time, but he and his
(32:30):
family also managed to escape captivity during the most difficult
time to attempt and escape. This and some other details
that have begun to unfold have left us with more
questions about Bashar than we currently have answers for questions
like what else was Baschar maid to do that spared
him his life? Why is he still in contact with
(32:54):
and on good terms with several former Isis militants. People
are complex, and even the obvious heroes of the story
have their faults and secrets, and Bashar is no different.
There are things about him that we've not yet been
able to explain. But I also think it's important to
recognize that he's a crucial player in Barson's rescue, and
(33:17):
Bashar has the full trust of Omar, the kid's uncle,
who is explaining that it's only through Bashar's connections with
former Isis militants from Talafar that they actually have a
chance of tracking down the Turkmen family who they think
kidnapped Barson. He asked them where they were, and they
(33:38):
said they're in Turkey. He said to them that there
was a family who took one of our kids. He
asked if they would be able to find their address
for us. They said, yes, hopefully they'd be able to
find the address. We learned this through Bischars contacts from Talafar,
who are living there. It's often the case that rescue
mission stall for months on end, information and credible leads
(34:00):
dry up. An ISIS militants online activity suddenly goes quiet.
Militants simply disappear and along with them their captives. But
through his connections from tal Afar, Omar says that Bashar
has managed to figure out that some members of the
Turkmen Isis family who took bars On are still alive
(34:21):
and he thinks he knows where they are, even though
there's been no confirmation that Barzan is still alive. And
with this Turkmen family, Baza is eager to talk to
Bashar about a potential rescue plan. What do you think
we need in order to rescue Barzan? Do you have
(34:43):
any ideas? The only solution is for a rescuer like
me to go to Turkey. It will never be easy
to bring him home. He has been raised by then,
he has forgotten everything about his parents. He was only
two years old and he was taken any two year
old child would forget his parents if he was taken
(35:05):
away from them for five years. If Barson is told
to leave, he will not. They must be a plan
through which Barson can be rescued and brought back. If
we had been able to contact them and knew where
exactly they are, how would we have started the rescuing process.
(35:25):
The process involves finding a man named Junice abu Bara.
If we can find him, he can help us in
getting Barson. This is the only person who can bring
Barson to us. If he does not do this, no
one else will. Through him, Barson can be saved. Unice
(35:45):
abu Bara is the name of the man and head
of the family who kidnapped Barson. As Omar mentioned earlier,
the online activity of Unice abu Bara went quiet some
years back. The photos of Barzon that they took from
his page or from a couple of years ago. This
could mean a number of things. He could be in hiding.
(36:07):
He could also be in prison somewhere in the region
and unable to or doesn't want to access the Internet,
but the most probable answer is that he's dead. Peshar
is calling his friend Basil, who lives in Ankara Turkey.
He's hoping that since Junis Abubara himself or some of
(36:27):
his family members at least are still alive, Balso might
know how to get to them. Hello, Hello, Basil, how
are you? Basil is one of Bashar's Turkmen contacts from Talafar.
He claims that he himself never joined ISIS, but two
of his brothers did, and that this was enough to
(36:49):
mark him as a terrorist as well. He says this
is why he fled to Ankare with his family when
tali Far fell to Coalition forces in two thousand seventeen.
Ah Chan and I'm I'm afraid my brother was a terrorist,
(37:11):
and that's why I can't go back to Iraq. And
that's why the Turks are apprehensive about returning us to Iraq.
Why Well, because the Iraqi government doesn't accept those who
joined ISIS nor the families of those who joined. Many
Iraqis are in the same situation as me right now.
I swear I was always advising him not to hurt
(37:34):
or kill anyone. I have no relationship with him now,
there's only animosity between us. Maybe Bashar knows I don't
talk to him. While on the phone with Basil, Bashara
gets one step closer to finding Unus Abu Bara. Mahama
josum A. Mohammed Jasim is the closest person to Abu Bada.
(38:00):
If we reach Mohammed Jasm, we'll be able to get
the result we want. He'll bring us to Abu Bata.
Basil says he knows one of nice Abu Bara's friends,
a man they're calling Mohammed Karam Jasm. It's through this
man that Basil thinks they'll be able to find the
family who may still have bars On. I knew that
(38:26):
you were here in Ankara, so I thought the person
who could take us to him as you. I'm gonna
give you some good news in the evening. Is that. Okay,
my brother Bush, We're going to air bill from do
(38:56):
Hook and then we'll go to Ankara. Turkey. H because
the child of ours has been in captivity since August.
We've gotten some information that he's now in Turkey. I
have some friends and I've contacted them. We have to
take a few steps in finding Barson's location. I want
(39:20):
to find a way to see the child. It's very
difficult to lose a family member, especially if you don't
know whether they're dead or alive. I just want to
find out what happened to him. I'll follow through until
I know something about him. Until there's no hope left,
I will not stop trying to find him. M Thanks
(39:59):
for tuning into this episode of The Missing. Don't forget
to submit your vote for your favorite podcast. Hi. This
is Sienna and Leona from Tossed Popcorn, last year's winner
of the Next Great Podcast. Thank you so much for
listening to this episode, and be sure to go vote
for your favorite at next Grete podcast dot com.
Welcome to season two of the Next Great Podcast. My
Heart Radio and Tongle have once again teamed up to
bring you another round of amazing and unique voices. We're
excited to share these ten incredible podcasts with you and
need your help crowning the winner. Check out the pilots
and be sure to vote for your favorite at Next
(00:24):
Great podcast dot com. Today's entry is almof Coude The
Missing by Farreness of Campana. Very little is known about
the Zity genocide, and Farrenisa plans to change that with
this podcast. She combines beautiful writing with high quality audio
to tell a deeply reported and emotionally compelling story about
(00:45):
a little known yet incredibly high stakes topic. By focusing
on the complicated figures in a single family, this podcast
has the potential to build awareness about a complex geopolitical
issue through these relatable human stories. I'm Pharreneesa Campana from
(01:09):
New York and you're listening to the pilot episode of
The Missing as part of the Next Great Podcast competition
from I Heart Radio and Tongle. Oh wow, is this
little boy him? M? Hmm, yeah, it's him. M. I'm
(01:37):
paging through a ring binder of old photographs. Well, there
are copies of old photographs. Some photos are of young girls,
others of young boys, and some photos are of families,
like the one I'm looking at now. In this photograph,
there appears to be a young mother and her husband.
(01:59):
There's standing with their four children, three sons and one daughter.
There is ity, and this photo was taken some time
before two fourteen, before Isis arrived in northern Iraq and
tried to wipe out these cities. The young mother is
looking directly into the camera with just a hint of
a smile. These cities don't often smile for photographs. It's
(02:20):
just not their thing. The little boy in her arms
is looking down. He's way too young to understand what
a camera is and that he should be looking at it.
The photo is pretty grainy, pretty blurry actually, but the
people in it are unmistakable. This is Goswan's family. This
(02:45):
is their father, this is their mother aff this is
Gazwan at None, this is Mediha, and this is Badizan.
He's older than his picture now. He's with dash Is
the Arabic acronym for Isis, the Islamic state of Iraq
(03:08):
and Syria. What Bazad is saying is that this little
boy Barson is still with ISIS. ISIS began its rampage
across northern Iraq two months ago. They called the land
they've seized an Islamic state, and they've targeted anyone who
(03:32):
isn't a sunny Muslim. But the Yazidis have been singled
out because the militants believe their devil worshipers. Showing reports
described isol militants rounding up families, conducting mass executions, and
enslaving Yazdi women. In the early morning hours of August third,
(04:01):
two thousand fourteen, the self proclaimed Islamic state entered Sinjar,
which is a region in northern Iraq nestled into the
base of Mount Sinjar. It's home to the Cities, an
ethno religious minority who have just experienced one of the
world's most recent genocides. On that day, ISIS began killing
(04:24):
and kidnapping thousands of year city men, women and children.
As they rampaged across Iraq. They left behind a trail
of dead bodies. Hundreds and hundreds of year city men
were slaughtered and piled up on the sides of roads,
in ditches and in mass graves. ISIS took only the
(04:44):
women and children with them that day, Sabine had It
was early in the morning when Isis arrived. The time
was around six o'clock. Wanted to escape from ISIS. We
(05:04):
tried to escape, but they captured us. They fired bullets
above our heads, and I heard them say to people, surrender,
for we shall harm you. I knew they were lying
to us. The voice you've just heard is that of
(05:24):
Kasawan Irahim Khalaf. The photo I'm holding is of him
and his family before ISIS had established a so called caliphate.
At its peak, ISIS claimed the caliphate covered over two
hundred and eighty two square kilometers across the rock in Syria.
That's roughly the size of Ecuador, and it had a
population of some ten million people. Because one was only
(05:50):
eight years old when he and his family were captured,
along with hundreds of other yeusities. This is the story
of families escaped from ISIS and their search for justice.
(06:11):
When news broke that a caravan of ISIS fighters was
approaching their village in pickup trucks, Oswin's father, Ibrahim, wasn't
home from work yet. Ibrahim was at the local hospital
that morning, where he worked as a cleaner, and by
the time he did return home, traffic on the only
road to safety was already at a standstill. The family
(06:35):
quickly threw some things in bags and jumped in their car.
As they waited in a slow crawl of traffic inching
towards safety, their car broke down. Soon Isis arrived. Each
truck was loaded with dozens of men wielding semi automatic weapons.
They were dressed all in black and flying the now
(06:56):
infamous black and white ISIS flag. They quickly began rounding
up whoever they could find. When ISIS arrived in our village,
(07:18):
they were in white Toyota cars. They were wearing black
clothes with masks on their faces. They had weapons on
their shoulders, They had their kind of ISIS vests. They
had their own flags on their cars. They came and
kidnapped us. We were scared and terrified. Even now when
(07:40):
I talk about it, I get very scared. This is
cas Ban's older sister Mediha. During the ISIS assault that day,
thousands of the cities made it up Mount Sinjar to safety.
They stayed there for several days without food and water
in the blinding August heat, as the world watched on immobile.
(08:01):
An entire week passed before US forces moved into action. Finally,
on August ten, US backed Syrian Kurdish forces carried out
several strategic air strikes. This enabled upwards of twenty to
thirty thousand Yaziti Iraqis to flee over the border into
Syria into relative safety. They were later rescued by Kurdish forces,
(08:25):
who provided shelter for them back in Dahuk in the
semi autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq. Had Graswin's family made
it up the mountain that day, their lives would be
very different today, but they didn't, and this is now
their story. Sancho who basa Ambasa. The first time we
(08:49):
tried to escape together, we went to a forest. We
were waiting for the smuggler there. The smuggler didn't come,
so we returned to our homes and we tried to
escape again. Two days later. The family waited for two
days and then try it again. This time the smuggler
(09:11):
did show up, but by then there were so many
other people waiting to be rescued that there wasn't enough
room for everyone in the two cars. Oh, but after
that they called us and they said that they would
come and take us that night or the next day,
(09:32):
but they didn't come. After that, my father went to
a shepherd and asked him to bring some food and
water to us. He said, okay, I'll bring it to you,
but he went to Isis and told them about us.
(09:53):
At first, when the family was taken into captivity, they
were kept together, but it wasn't long before Isis of
thettants started forcibly separating the remaining men from the women
and children, and after their failed attempt to escape, the
siblings were then separated from their mother and finally from
each other and sold to four different ices families in Iraq, Syria,
(10:17):
and Turkey. Yea. Then they separated all of us and
later we were tortured and severely beaten, and nine nine
on the ninth of September, I lost contact with my mother, brothers,
sister and father. I never saw them again, at least
(10:42):
until we were rescued. Now it's only the three of us.
As One was the first of the four children to
be sold to an Isis fighter. He was immediately taken
first to Mosl and then over the border into Syria.
As One's older sister and younger brother were sold soon
(11:02):
after that. The youngest sibling, however, Barson, disappeared. He was
only two at the time. Their parents, aff and Ibraheim
were never heard from or seen again. They are two
of the nearly three thousand year cities who are still missing,
(11:25):
and with little international support, search and rescue efforts have
largely fallen to local, underground networks of volunteer rescuers. Yeah,
my name is I'm This is Bazad who you heard
from at the beginning of this episode. He's one of
(11:45):
the volunteer rescuers who has dedicated the past several years
of his life to rescuing Ziti is still in captivity.
Come on. After what happened in Sinjad in August two
Thousan fourteen, I was trying to communicate with the families
(12:05):
and areas controlled by ISIS. I started communicating with hundreds
of survivors. We heard the stories of those who were
still being held captive by ISIS and of their suffering.
We then set about making plans to locate the missing.
I documented everything I knew about ISIS. Over the nearly
(12:33):
seven years since the genocide occurred, Bazzard and his team
have been creating files for the captured and missing usities.
It's slow work, but without these records it would be
nearly impossible to keep track of those who are still missing.
The work is not only emotionally taxing, it carries huge
(12:54):
risks for those involved. If Buzzard wants information about us
it is still being held captive by ISIS, he has
to infiltrate their group. He has to become one of them,
or at least appear to be one of them online
and in messaging apps. After the initial assault in August
(13:19):
two fourteen, it didn't take long for ISIS fighters to
set up an online slave market where they could buy
and sell girls and women as sabaya's or sex slaves.
Bazzad knew he needed access to the slave market, so
he went undercover. While working on documentation, we heard that
(13:43):
ISIS was using groups to communicate with each other to
sell people in the Caliphate market. Because they were calling it.
I managed to join the groups with a fake name.
I named myself with names similar to theirs, like Abu
Abdullah and Abu Ahmad. Thus I infiltrated the groups and
(14:06):
listened to them and knew what was happening. Once he
gains access to these groups. Bazad and his team then
pretend to be ISIS militants interested in buying girls and
sometimes boys, to be their slaves. Before a rescue you
can even begin, though, the rescuers have to learn the
(14:26):
identity of the person being sold and whether or not
they have family or relatives looking for them. In order
to do this, Bazzad downloads the photographs of ziti Is
being sold on telegram group chats, and he then circulates
these photos within the Ziti community, hoping that someone recognizes them.
(14:47):
If they're able to confirm the captive's identity, Bazad approaches
the ISIS militant selling the girl or boy and asks
how he can go about purchasing them and for what price.
Then buzz Sad takes the riskiest step in the process.
He asks for the location of the ISIS militant in
order to collect the person from him. If the ISIS
(15:11):
militant remains unsuspecting and provides his address, Bazad's team springs
into action, and so we were given the address and
later we would mark the exact location where the boys
or the girls were located. Then some civilian from that
(15:33):
area would be told to go and see the house.
Their mission was to watch the house and make use
of any opportunity to enter the house, and then show
the captive either pictures or a video of their family.
They would tell them that they had come for their rescue.
(15:54):
The following step was for that civilian we sent to
take the victim to a safer place with an ice
Is territory. After that, smugglers were told to get them
out of the Isis area and bring them to Kurdish territories. Finally,
they were brought back to Iraq and they were taken
(16:16):
to their families, whether in the Hook or in Saint
John m H. A rescue mission like this typically takes
several weeks or months. Even sometimes the rescue mission fails
(16:40):
and the captive disappears back into oblivion. There are also
times when Bazard's cover is blown and an Isis militant
discovers that he's not, in fact one of them. That's
when the threats start coming in. My information reached Isis
and I was sent messages in which I was threatened.
(17:03):
They threatened me by telling me they could locate me,
but I did not allow this to make me give
up in searching for abductees. It was difficult for me
since Isis was at its peak. Talking with the desperate
victims gave me reason to go on in spite of
the difficulties when this happens. Butzot is more cautious. He
(17:30):
lays low for a bit, changes his norm to gear,
but he never never stops looking for is Ity survivors. Well,
one of I was really careful dealing with them. I
changed my name from time to time to a known
isis name of a person I had talked to before
(17:51):
in a different area. This is what I did for
safety reasons. Azad is only one of many such volunteer rescuers.
He alone has worked on dozens of rescues. One of
these rescues was of Kaswan, who he managed to bring
back in July two thousand sixteen after a lengthy ten
(18:15):
month cross border rescue mission. It was in one of
these telegram group chats where he came across a photo
of Kaswan for sale. I've rescued many people, of all
of them, only Gazwan remembers me. I worked hard for
(18:37):
ten months before Gazwan was rescued. When he got out
of the car, he went and hugged his family. He
was telling them, don't cry, for I've returned. Kaswan's rescue
was both complicated and expensive. The ISIS militant who bought
him in two thousand fourteen had taken him over the
(18:58):
border into Syria uh which made it much more difficult
to reach him. In Syria, ras One was being trained
as a Caliphate cub, a child soldier. Typically, Caliphate cubs
were children recruited within ISIS held territories. They were the
young children of active ISIS militants. They were also orphaned
(19:21):
children of ISIS militants who had been killed in battle.
But many Caliphate cubs were also the kidnapped children of
the cities who were then systematically brainwashed and indoctrinated into
the ISIS ideology. Haswan was only one of thousands of
these city child soldiers. One. We were taught almost horrifying things.
(19:45):
We were taught how to kill and to captate others.
And I was also taught how to drive a car
so that I could kill myself by committing suicide. To
clarify here, has One was being taught how to drive
a car for the soul whole purpose of becoming a
suicide bomber. He was being trained to fight against the enemy,
(20:07):
the nonbelievers, his own people, the asities, and just a
reminder as Juan was only about eight or nine years
old at the time. When I was in the hands
(20:29):
of ISIS, they were torturing me and hitting me hard.
Some parts of my body still feel the pain of
this torture. It was so difficult for me to refuse
them and to say no. I was there for a
year and a half, Adnan for three years, my sister
for four years. My brother Barzan is still missing. He's
seven years old now. Up to this very moment, I
(20:49):
have no idea where my little brother is. I've missed him.
After two years in captivity and being trained as a
child soldier to kill his own people, Haswan was sold
to Bazad, who was posing as an ISIS militant. On
July two thousand sixteen, Bazad secured Gaswan's freedom with eleven
(21:15):
thousand U S. Dollars. One year after Gazwan was returned home,
his sister Mediha and brother Adnan were also rescued. The
three of them now live with one of their uncles
in a camp in the Kurdistan region of Iraq Hall
in my camp by that Nata Oh, we're living under
(21:37):
bad circumstances in the camp. Our life is such a
terrible life here. There are too many vicious dogs in
the camp. Sometimes we don't have enough food in the camp.
There's not enough space to care for anything, including sheep
or chickens. If our mother had returned, everything would have
(22:00):
been fine. Bazad is also one of the rescuers now
working on finding the siblings missing brother Barson. To do this,
he first needs to create a missing person's file for Barzon,
in the same way he did for all the other
year cities he's rescued. In this file, he'll include details
(22:21):
like where Barson was last seen, by whom or with
whom he was last seen, and what he was wearing
when he disappeared. Barzon was only two years old when
he went missing in two thousand and fourteen. It's now
been five years. If he's still alive, he probably isn't
aware of what has happened to him, and he certainly
(22:43):
won't recognize his real family. So instead, his family must
think of ways that they will be able to recognize him.
There are some signs through which we can recognize Barson.
There's a mole at the back of his neck that
he's had since he was born. He used to wear
an earring in one of his ears. This is Omar,
(23:06):
the siblings uncle on their father's side. They have been
living with him, his two wives, and four of his
many children since they were each rescued from Isis captivity.
It's a warm spring afternoon in May two nineteen, and
Bazad is visiting Omar and Gazwan at the Kadia camp
in Dohoq, where the family now lives. He's heard a
(23:30):
rumor that someone in Gazwan's extended family might know what
happened to Barzon all those years ago. Rumors often don't
lead anywhere in these rescues. The more people the information
passes through, the more convoluted it gets. But still he
has to check out every lead, even if it's just
a rumor. And he news about Barizan. We know Barons
(23:55):
with someone whose name. We also know he was with
a family from tal Afar. We've gotten a picture of
him from his Facebook page. It's here with us. His
tribe is called al Kareem in Talafar, a Turkmen, Turkmen
and Ya cities have coexisted in the region for hundreds
of years as friends, neighbors, and sometimes even as blended families,
(24:19):
But with the arrival of ISIS in two thousand fourteen,
many Sunni Turkmen quickly joined rank and turned against their yusity,
neighbors and friends. Knowing the ethnicity and the tribe of
this family is important. Knowing this means knowing where the
family might have ended up if they're still alive. Iraqi
(24:43):
forces say they've retaken almost all of Talafar Isles stronghold
in the country's northwest. The Iraqi military said in the
statement on Sunday, one week since operations were launched in
tal Afar, and Iraqi joined forces advanced to the center
of the district, breaking most of dashes defense lines. Iraqi
(25:04):
soldiers walked the streets of tal Afar, in a neighborhood
freshly liberated from the Islamic State group. They're searching for
any dangers the militants may have left behind. Three years
(25:27):
after tal Afar fell to ISIS, it was liberated by
Iraqi coalition forces in August two thousand seventeen. Many local
ISIS fighters were either killed during this battle or captured
but many more were also able to flee to Turkey
via Syria. If this family is still alive, there's a
(25:48):
strong possibility they're now in Turkey. I know about them.
All people from Tali far and went to Turkey. I
expect that he's in Turkey. Did they go to Ankara?
Many families are said to have left for Turkey. Barizan's
(26:09):
cases so difficult. The only way is to search for
and find the family here is with Iraqi. Turkmen ended
up in Turkey, not only because of the proximity of
the two countries. Turks and Turkmen share ethnic, religious, and
linguistic ties. In fact, most Turkmen in Iraq today are
(26:30):
the descendants of the Ottoman soldiers, traders, and civil servants
who arrived in Iraq from Anatolia during the time of
the Ottoman Empire. Although Iraqi Turks are commonly referred to
as Turkmen, they're not actually directly related to the Turkmen
people of Turkmenistan. They also don't identify as such, and
(26:51):
mostly adhere to a Turkish heritage and identity. It's not surprising, then,
that so many Turkmen ISIS militants fled to Turkey in
two thousand seventeen. It's also not surprising that their presence
is not unwelcome in Turkey. What is surprising is that
it's still unclear whether or not the Turkish government is
(27:13):
aware that many of these incoming Turkmen who have claimed
asylum there our former ISIS members, and that many of
them have brought their yusity captives with them. Some of
our relatives were their neighbors. They had heard them saying
that they were going to lead for Turkey. We know
many things about that ISIS member, like he had no
(27:34):
kids despite having two wives. He was responsible for military
equipments in tal Afar. Here Omar is sharing all the
details that he knows because any detail about Barson or
the family who they think kidnapped him is important. Knowing
what job the head of this Turkmen family performed for
ISIS can help lead to other information about him, including
(27:58):
his real name, where he was living, and who else
he's related to. In tal Afar. We also know by
what name Barson was called with them, what's his name,
but they call him abay to there is that man
still alive. We have no idea. So far he's not
been found online for some time. As Omar is talking
(28:22):
to Bazad, Raswan pulls out his phone and shows Bazad
a photo that he says they found on Facebook. They
found it on the now inactive page of the man
they say took Barson. The boy in the photo looks
to be around six years old, and he looks exactly
like Gaswan and add Nan, there's little doubt that this
(28:44):
boy is their brother Barzon. In the photo, he's standing
in front of a flower shop. It must be February
around Valentine's Day because the shop windows are filled with
already made bouquets of flowers. There's a large white Teddy
Bear air and a red heart shaped balloon that says
I Love You in Turkish. Razwan swipes right on his
(29:09):
phone and more photos appear. In another one, Barson is
wearing a Spider Man track suit and is standing in
front of a fountain with a waterfall. He is staring
into the camera blankly. While Roswan is showing bazat these photos,
Media looks over his shoulder and begins to explain, this
(29:34):
is the photo of my brother Barson. He was so
young at the time. Now he doesn't know whether he's
Yazeedi or Muslim. He's grown up. I miss him very much.
This relative that Omar says gave them information about this
Turkmen family is his nephew the siblings cousin on the
(29:56):
father's side of the family. His name is Bashar and
he's in his early thirties. Bashar claims that in two
thousand fourteen, his neighbors were a local Turkmen family who
had joined Isis. According to Bashar, they are the ones
who kidnaped Barzon. And when Bashar says this family were
(30:18):
his neighbors, what he means is that while he himself
was being held captive by another ISIS militant, they were
living next door to this Isis family. There were only
neighbors because Bashar too was an ISIS captive. Bashar survived
captivity unlike hundreds of other Yisti men from Talafar, and
(30:40):
this is because, according to him, he willingly and convincingly
converted to Islam. His wife and children did as well. This,
he claims, is the only thing that saved him and
his family from an otherwise certain death. Shrewd him. M hmm. Well,
(31:03):
first of all, I had to say yes to conversion.
When they order you to do good, you must. When
you are told to do bad, you have to. Secondly,
when someone wants the safety and interests of his family members,
they will agree to do whatever the enemy says. The
important thing was to save your family. I would prefer
(31:24):
listening to what they tell me than seeing my family
members being killed or sold. For sure, I will not
be doing it with intent. I'll do it to save
my family and myself. Converting to Islam alone wasn't always
a sure fire protection against execution. The reason I say
this is because in April two fifteen, many city families
(31:47):
in the same neighborhood as Bashar, who had also converted
to Islam to save themselves, tried to escape Isis captivity.
And while many of these families succeeded, many more failed.
After this, between three hundred and five hundred U city
men were executed in Talifar, while the women and children
(32:09):
were quickly sold. They had become a liability to Isis.
Coalition forces were ramping up air strikes on Isis because
the cities who had made it out of captivity were
giving up their locations. So not only did Bashar manage
to avoid execution during this time, but he and his
(32:30):
family also managed to escape captivity during the most difficult
time to attempt and escape. This and some other details
that have begun to unfold have left us with more
questions about Bashar than we currently have answers for questions
like what else was Baschar maid to do that spared
him his life? Why is he still in contact with
(32:54):
and on good terms with several former Isis militants. People
are complex, and even the obvious heroes of the story
have their faults and secrets, and Bashar is no different.
There are things about him that we've not yet been
able to explain. But I also think it's important to
recognize that he's a crucial player in Barson's rescue, and
(33:17):
Bashar has the full trust of Omar, the kid's uncle,
who is explaining that it's only through Bashar's connections with
former Isis militants from Talafar that they actually have a
chance of tracking down the Turkmen family who they think
kidnapped Barson. He asked them where they were, and they
(33:38):
said they're in Turkey. He said to them that there
was a family who took one of our kids. He
asked if they would be able to find their address
for us. They said, yes, hopefully they'd be able to
find the address. We learned this through Bischars contacts from Talafar,
who are living there. It's often the case that rescue
mission stall for months on end, information and credible leads
(34:00):
dry up. An ISIS militants online activity suddenly goes quiet.
Militants simply disappear and along with them their captives. But
through his connections from tal Afar, Omar says that Bashar
has managed to figure out that some members of the
Turkmen Isis family who took bars On are still alive
(34:21):
and he thinks he knows where they are, even though
there's been no confirmation that Barzan is still alive. And
with this Turkmen family, Baza is eager to talk to
Bashar about a potential rescue plan. What do you think
we need in order to rescue Barzan? Do you have
(34:43):
any ideas? The only solution is for a rescuer like
me to go to Turkey. It will never be easy
to bring him home. He has been raised by then,
he has forgotten everything about his parents. He was only
two years old and he was taken any two year
old child would forget his parents if he was taken
(35:05):
away from them for five years. If Barson is told
to leave, he will not. They must be a plan
through which Barson can be rescued and brought back. If
we had been able to contact them and knew where
exactly they are, how would we have started the rescuing process.
(35:25):
The process involves finding a man named Junice abu Bara.
If we can find him, he can help us in
getting Barson. This is the only person who can bring
Barson to us. If he does not do this, no
one else will. Through him, Barson can be saved. Unice
(35:45):
abu Bara is the name of the man and head
of the family who kidnapped Barson. As Omar mentioned earlier,
the online activity of Unice abu Bara went quiet some
years back. The photos of Barzon that they took from
his page or from a couple of years ago. This
could mean a number of things. He could be in hiding.
(36:07):
He could also be in prison somewhere in the region
and unable to or doesn't want to access the Internet,
but the most probable answer is that he's dead. Peshar
is calling his friend Basil, who lives in Ankara Turkey.
He's hoping that since Junis Abubara himself or some of
(36:27):
his family members at least are still alive, Balso might
know how to get to them. Hello, Hello, Basil, how
are you? Basil is one of Bashar's Turkmen contacts from Talafar.
He claims that he himself never joined ISIS, but two
of his brothers did, and that this was enough to
(36:49):
mark him as a terrorist as well. He says this
is why he fled to Ankare with his family when
tali Far fell to Coalition forces in two thousand seventeen.
Ah Chan and I'm I'm afraid my brother was a terrorist,
(37:11):
and that's why I can't go back to Iraq. And
that's why the Turks are apprehensive about returning us to Iraq.
Why Well, because the Iraqi government doesn't accept those who
joined ISIS nor the families of those who joined. Many
Iraqis are in the same situation as me right now.
I swear I was always advising him not to hurt
(37:34):
or kill anyone. I have no relationship with him now,
there's only animosity between us. Maybe Bashar knows I don't
talk to him. While on the phone with Basil, Bashara
gets one step closer to finding Unus Abu Bara. Mahama
josum A. Mohammed Jasim is the closest person to Abu Bada.
(38:00):
If we reach Mohammed Jasm, we'll be able to get
the result we want. He'll bring us to Abu Bata.
Basil says he knows one of nice Abu Bara's friends,
a man they're calling Mohammed Karam Jasm. It's through this
man that Basil thinks they'll be able to find the
family who may still have bars On. I knew that
(38:26):
you were here in Ankara, so I thought the person
who could take us to him as you. I'm gonna
give you some good news in the evening. Is that. Okay,
my brother Bush, We're going to air bill from do
(38:56):
Hook and then we'll go to Ankara. Turkey. H because
the child of ours has been in captivity since August.
We've gotten some information that he's now in Turkey. I
have some friends and I've contacted them. We have to
take a few steps in finding Barson's location. I want
(39:20):
to find a way to see the child. It's very
difficult to lose a family member, especially if you don't
know whether they're dead or alive. I just want to
find out what happened to him. I'll follow through until
I know something about him. Until there's no hope left,
I will not stop trying to find him. M Thanks
(39:59):
for tuning into this episode of The Missing. Don't forget
to submit your vote for your favorite podcast. Hi. This
is Sienna and Leona from Tossed Popcorn, last year's winner
of the Next Great Podcast. Thank you so much for
listening to this episode, and be sure to go vote
for your favorite at next Grete podcast dot com.
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