Rare News Desk
Just weeks after the world learned about the two teenage girls who left Europe to join the Islamic State terrorist group, there are now reports that one of them maybe dead.
Videos by Rare
The two girls, Samra Kesinovic and Sabina Selimovic, made headlines in April when they ran away from home to join an Islamic extremist group. Almost five months after they disappeared, the world learned that the two teenagers had joined the Islamic State.
Authorities have not confirmed whether Kesinovic or Selimovic has died, though they have received information that indicates one of the girls was likely killed in battle.
After reports circulated on Austrian television late Sunday, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry confirmed the reports to the local Salzburger News.
“We also have this information and have checked it, but cannot say with absolute certainty that it is true. But the parents have been informed their daughter could be dead,” the official said.
Before the news that one of them may have passed away, rumors abounded online that one or both of the girls had been impregnated by Chechen fighters in Syria. Conflicting social media accounts, purporting to belong to the two friends have alternatively gone silent, while also boasting of their pending childbirths.
Austrian officials have doubted the validity of social media accounts purporting to be the teenagers, noting that it was highly unlikely the men of the Islamic State would allow them public access to the outside world.
“We have no independent confirmation that either of them are dead or alive, or that they are pregnant, although we suspect both are married,” an Austrian spokesman said, according to the New York Post.
Last week, the Times of India spoke to a 17-year-old Yazidi girl held captive by the Islamic State. She was allowed to be interviewed so that her parents would know of the horrors she has been subjected to.
“Part of me would like to die immediately, to sink beneath the ground and say there. But another part that still hopes to be saved, and to be able to hug my parents once more,” the anonymous girl said.
“They threaten us and beat us if we try to resist. Often I wish they would beat me so hard I will die. But they are cowards even in this. None of them have the courage to end our suffering.”
More on ISIS
- Here is the last moment of an ISIS terrorist’s life
- Military leader: Americans could join Iraqi troops to fight ISIS
- British PM promises to “destroy ISIS with iron determination”
- “Anonymous” hackers wage war on ISIS
