'There was nothing I could do': Tragic real-life story of how mother loses daughters to ISIS - the youngest only 3-years-old

'ISIS took my baby daughter Basima. She was only three years old, but she has blonde hair, she is beautiful.'

A Yazidi woman living in a refugee camp in Dohuk, Iraq, recalls an ISIS raid that left her beaten, heartbroken and without two of her daughters - the youngest of which has blonde hair, a highly valuable trait to ISIS sex slavers.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The mother of nine, Noora, told Mail Online: "ISIS took my baby daughter Basima. She was only three years old, but she has blonde hair, she is beautiful. I tried to stop him, I fought with him, but he hit me in the face with his gun, a Kalashnikov. There was nothing I could do."

Her daughters were kidnapped August 2014, a time that will forever remain a painful reminder of ISIS brutality and their insatiable hunger for sex slaves.

Noora was one of thousands of Yazidi who became trapped on Sinjar Mountain. When ISIS attacked, Noora recalled hearing gunfire and racing with her nine children to the mountain. 

"Everyone in the village ran to the mountain," she stated. "I was carrying the children so I could not carry anything else. I went with my family but I could not carry any food or water. We spent the night in the open on the mountain side. There was nothing to eat and nothing to drink. The children were becoming weak. I had to get them something to drink otherwise they would die.

"We went down the mountain to find water for the children. But we were surrounded by ISIS and captured. My father was killed in front of me. ISIS told us to change our religion or they would kill us. My father refused and they shot him dead. We were taken prisoner."

Noora explained her husband, Exden, has been missing since they were captured and she assumes he has been killed. Meanwhile, Noora and her remaining family members agreed to convert to Islam in a desperate effort to save her children.

Noora and her family were kept in captivity for a year, during which time she attempted to keep her oldest daughter Sahira, who was 13-years-old, from growing. 

"I didn't give her much to eat, so she would not grow," Noora admitted, "so she would stay small, so she would stay a child, so she would not look like a young woman and would be protected. But ISIS came and took her. That was three or four months ago."

In an attempt to fool ISIS men, Noona dressed her 10-year-old daughter in a diaper and instructed her to act mentally disabled.

"I cut her long hair. We pretended she was mentally disabled. I put a nappy on her and told her to act like a baby. She pretended she was mad."

While her daughter was relatively protected, a broadcast by a Yazidi woman identified as Vian Dakhil reached the captive Yazidi - and the world- to say, "Brothers, I appeal to you in the name of all humanity. Save us! Save us!"

"When we were in captivity I saw on the TV the Yazidi lady Vian Dakhil asking the world to help us Yazidis," Noora said. "ISIS did not like this and would not let us watch. But this gave us hope."

Noora was so touched by Vian's words that she named one of her daughters Vian.

Sadly, Noora was later sold to a Syrian man who forced her to become his sex slave. Luckily, she was able to persuade him to contact her family, who settled on purchasing Noora and her children back for a price of $35,000.

Since their ransom, Noora and her family have been supported by the Sinjar Foundation, which works to help victims of kidnappings and sexual violence.

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