Those of you who have only been visting The Glittering Eye for the last few years may not know that for several years I curated a weekly round-up of the work of Iraqi bloggers. I kept track of every blogger actually blogging from Iraq that I could identify. With only a few exceptions they were young enough to be my children or grandchildren and I felt sort of paternal towards them. I’d guess I stopped seven or eight years ago.
This afternoon it suddenly occurred to me that one of the bloggers I kept track of was a young woman (Sunni Arab) in Mosul who posted as “A Star from Mosul” and, since Mosul had fallen under DAESH’s control, it might be interesting to see what she had to say.
Her most recent post is here. It’s dated June 26, 2014 and it’s pretty heart-rending. Here’s the opening:
I don’t know what to say, my heart is full of sorrow and fear
The past 3 weeks were the hardest ever, 11 years of war , I’ve written about hard days in blog but they are nothing compared to what happened this time.
and the conclusion is here:
Right now, there is no shooting , and armed men took control of Mosul and near by villages, as well as other cities ..
there is no electricity, no fuel, no gas, no salaries, lack of food supplies especially the one that need Freezers , the vegetables and fruits are bad and expensive , as there are no electricity the food in our refrigerators molded , people are struggling in this hot weather (42 Cel)
Everyone is worried and upset , no one knows what will happen next.
We just want a suitable life like any other human being in the world, is it too much to ask?
We are thinking seriously to leave , but how? where? When? We don’t know ..
The last words are:
note : I’ll try to post some photos as soon as i have a better internet connection .
and nothing has been written since.
Yes, that is heart-rendering: ABOUT ME: “I grow up among well educated family. i am studying engineering now, it was my dream to be an engineer and help in rebuilding my country in the future. I have many dreams and ambitions, I wish that one day they become true .my mom always support me to accomplish my ambitions … optimism is my strategy always…”
She appears to have commented in her last post in response to concerns expressed about Mosul, but the comments do not appear to be dated.
Has it been that long? I think I found your site based on the Iraqi blogs.
I hope she is OK. She is not the kind of woman that Daesh will tolerate and they control Mosul. I can only hope she is laying low and surviving.
I published nearly 150 of those round-ups, the last in October of 2007.
By all reports, IS is pretty media savvy. Does not bode well for her.
Steve
The blog you linked to is not Najma from astarfrommosul. Najma was born in 1988 and the blog you linked to says Sunshine was born in 1992. There is also a link on that blog to astarfrommosul and it appears that blog is now visible only to invited members.
I’ve been wondering how she was doing, her blog is invite only.