Sarah, a 34-year-old Moroccan, hails from the city of Tetouan on the Mediterranean coast. In 2008, she married a young Moroccan lawyer with whom she had two children.
Later into their marriage, Sarah discovered that her husband was a supporter of Al-Qaeda.
She tells a story of how her husband let her into his “secret world” and how his allegiance shifted to support ISIS in the wake of the Syrian regime suppressing opposition groups.
Before traveling to Syria, Sarah noticed her husband spending long hours surfing the internet on his computer screen. Early in 2015, the couple flew to Turkey to enter Syria through its northern town of Tell Abiad, which borders the Turkish city of Akçakale.
They then headed for Syria’s northeastern Raqqa city, then known as the capital of ISIS, where her husband trained to join the terror group while she stayed with other ISIS wives.
Sarah’s husband was later drafted into a regiment and was tasked with delivering logistics support to ISIS-held positions and headquarters.
A year later, in 2016, her husband began to rethink his support for the terrorist organization, its policies, and absurd wars. He decided to defect and escape.
With the start of the military operation launched by the US-led International Coalition in the summer of 2017 and passageways reopening for civilians to escape, Sarah and her husband attempted breaking free from ISIS territory.
“We headed to one of these passages with the help of a smuggler, who we paid $2,000,” Sarah told Asharq Al-Awsat, adding that the smuggler asked the couple to separate, fearing that ISIS militants would pursue them.
Riding in different vehicles, Sarah and her husband would go on in different directions and never see each other again.
“It was a while before I heard any news of him. Later, I was told that ISIS leaders killed him for defecting,” recounts Sarah.
Sarah says that she surrendered to a checkpoint belonging to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. She was then transferred with her two children to al-Hol camp, eastern Syria, and stayed there for several months.
At the end of 2017, she relocated to Roj camp, where she has been living for four years.
Zakia, aged 30, is a German citizen of Serbian origin who traveled to Syria seven years ago with her husband, a Bosnian with German citizenship.
She tells a story of how her husband deceived her. He had told her that they would work in Turkey but later revealed that he intended to enter Syria.
She hardly remembers the year she traveled to Syria, which was towards the end of 2014.
She described life in ISIS-held areas as “tiring and arduous.”
“I lived days and nights under a barrage of bombing, the sounds of explosions and violent battles,” she told Asharq Al-Awsat.
“When he (her husband) told me that he would enter Syria, I strongly refused, but I followed him, and we lived in many Syrian cities and towns,” said Zakia.
Her husband was killed five months after their arrival on the front lines.
Today, Zakia is raising a family of 5 people of both Syrian and Bosnian nationalities, waiting to move out from the conflict-ridden country.
