Our world as it once was

In August 2014, Farida was, like any ordinary teenager, enjoying the last days of summer before her final year at school. However, her peaceful mountain village in northern Iraq was an ISIS target as their genocide against the Yazidi people began.

The catastrophe

ISIS murdered the men and boys in the village, including Farida's father and brother, and took the women hostage. Farida was one of them. She was held in a slave camp, in the homes of ISIS members and finally in a desert training camp. Continually she struggled, resisted and fought against her captors, showing unimaginable strength and bravery.

This is my story

Eventually, Farida managed to plot her escape and fled into the desert with five young girls in her care, but defeating ISIS was just the first step in her journey. In this book she tells her remarkable and inspiring story.

Farida Khalaf (Author) Farida and her brothers were brought up in the Yazidi community in Kocho, Iraq. She was 19 years old when ISIS attacked her village, killed the men, captured the women and sold them into slavery. After four months, Farida managed to escape against all odds. She was reunited with her mother and her brothers in an Iraqi refugee camp and was granted asylum in Germany in 2015.

Andrea C. Hoffmann (Author) Andrea C. Hoffmann is a Middle East expert, a writer forFocusmagazine in Germany, and author of numerous books. Her specialisation is the situation of women in Muslim countries.