Incidents in a northern district have forced women to flee their homes

Zarifa, who lives in northwestern Afghanistan, remembers the day the head of a local Islamic State (IS) group came to her village, demanding money he said her husband had promised.

“I told him we didn’t have any money but that if we found any we would send it to him. But he didn’t accept that and said I had to be married to one of his people and leave my husband and go with them,” said Ms. Zarifa.

Threat to life

“When I refused, the people he had with him took my children to another room and he took a gun and said if I didn’t go with him he would kill me and take my house. And he did everything he could to me.”

The attack forced Ms. Zarifa to leave her home in the Darzab district of south Jawzjan, which borders Turkmenistan and where the IS has a growing presence, and seek shelter in the provincial capital of Sheberghan. Another woman, Samira, who escaped Darzab and now lives in Sheberghan, said fighters came to her house and took her 14 year-old sister to their commander. “He didn’t marry her and no one else married her but he raped her and his soldiers forced themselves on her and even the head of the village who is in Daesh forced himself on my sister and raped her,” she said. Daesh is an Arabic term for the IS.

Stories like those told by Ms. Samira and Ms. Zarifa have emerged in recent months as thousands have fled Darzab.

“Daesh has committed many horrors in Darzab that can’t be told,” said the Taliban’s main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid.

“It is completely against our culture and traditions,” said Mohammad Radmanish, a Defence Ministry spokesman.