The evening of August 20, 2014, Abu Fadi received an urgent call from his mother. “Abu, come for me,” she cried from the Iraqi city of Mosul. Before he could respond, an Islamic State (ISIS) fighter grabbed the phone and asked Abu to confirm that he was her son. “Yes, I am her son,” Abu replied. “What is the problem?” “Today, come and take your mother and sister,” the fighter said. “If you will not come today, we will throw them in the street. Either they will be Muslim or we will leave them in the street. You just come and take them.” The ISIS fighter took all the family’s money and belongings, closed up their house and painted the Arabic letter “N” on the home, indicating Nassarah, or “Christian”. Knowing he couldn’t enter Mosul as a Christian, Abu asked a Muslim friend to bring his elderly mother and sister — both in wheelchairs — to his nearby city, which had recently come under ISIS control. Once there, the two women joined Abu and his wife and they drove toward Bashiqa in the north. However, shortly after starting their journey, their car was stopped at an ISIS checkpoint by fighters
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