ICC Note: Rana is a Christian woman from Qaraqosh who was held captive by ISIS for two and a half years. During this time, she stayed alive by pretending to convert to Islam. The trauma of this experience continues to affect her deeply. A number of Christian women remain held in captivity by ISIS, and continue to live this horror every day.      

07/29/2018 Iraq (Christian Post) – A Christian woman who was kidnapped by the Islamic State in the Iraqi town of Qaraqosh in 2014 has said that she fears what Jesus Christ thinks of her after she pretended to be a Muslim to spare her life.

As many as 38 Christian women from Qaraqosh remain in IS captivity, believers told The U.K. Sunday Times earlier this week, along with thousands of other women and children who’ve been kidnapped by the terror group.

While IS has suffered heavy losses in the past two years, having lost control of Qaraqosh and many other towns it had initially captured, the fate of at least 38 Christian women remains unknown.

A woman named Rana, one of the Christians who managed to escape after she was captured following the 2014 raid, admitted that at one point during her two-and-a-half years imprisonment she pretended to convert to Islam to spare her life.

She shared that she fasted and prayed five times during the day, as per Islamic custom, but silently at night she would pray to Jesus and the Virgin Mary for deliverance.

“There was so many times where I could have committed suicide, but I decided I did not want to lose my soul,” the woman said. “I still had one bit of hope.”

She has since been welcomed back to St. Behnam Church, her worship community, though says that she is fearful that she committed sin by pretending to convert to Islam.

Father Duraid Barbar, a local priest, says that a number of the rescued women have shared similar stories of having to pretend to have left Christ.

“I tell them, ‘There’s no problem, because Jesus loves you, He never left you,'” the priest said.

…

For interviews with Claire Evans, ICC’s Regional Manager, please contact Olivia Miller, Communications Coordinator: [email protected].