- An Iraqi news outlet reports of a boy’s family forced to change his name
- The 3-year-old, called Messi, was kidnapped in 2014 with his mother and sister
- His name, inspired by the Barcelona team football hero, was deemed too “unislamic”
A report coming out of an Iraqi news outlet, tells of a boy called Messi, after the Argentinian football star, who was taken hostage by ISIS in 2014. He was merely three years old then.
Messi has since been freed from his ISIS captors.
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The toddler was held captive for three years, along with his mother and sister. The jihadists ordered his family to have his named changed, because the one he originally had was deemed too “unislamic”. The boy’s Kurdish Yazidi father is a Messi fan.
Messi's father has slowly instilled in his son the love of football again.
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He has since been rescued and is now living in a refugee camp in Dohuk, Iraq. Even though his three years in captivity are behind him, the boy still carries the psychological scars of the ordeal. He barely speaks, and whereas before his favorite play item was a football, the one he likes to use now is a toy gun.
Yet they are the “lucky” ones. Some three thousand Yazidis have been rescued since 2014, when the kidnappings started, but many more still remain in ISIS hands. They are forced to convert, many of them are enslaved –especially women–, or eventually killed.
Here is Kurdistan 24 news channel original report:
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