'We were terrified' 13-year-old Yazidi boy shares horrific insider stories of life under ISIS

Boys forced to learn how to behead innocent people.

A 13-year-old Yazidi boy recalls how ISIS brutes took over his school and turned his class into mini-jihadists, with ISIS fighters teaching them how to behead non-believers.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - The boy, Taha Jalo Murad, explained that the terror group tried to brainwash him and his classmates into becoming Islamic extremists. The boys were given lessons on the Sharia Law, the Koran and where to precisely point the knife on the neck during a beheading.

Mock executions were encouraged after every instruction. The boys were forced to practice on fellow pupils in the front of the class. "They taught us how to cut people's heads off - they taught us which arteries of the neck are best to cut," Taha said.

Taha's travails started when ISIS conquered his school in Kocho village, in the Sinjar Mountains, northern Iraq. Each day, the boys who practiced the Yazidi religion, would pray with the extremists for an hour, five times a day.

The lectures could go on for hours inside the dirty school building. The lectures would eventually be followed by lessons on how to fight and use pistols. Some of the boys have been sent on suicide missions with bombs strapped around their waist.

"We were terrified, and didn't want to use the weapons - but if we didn't, we would be beaten," Taha said. "They told us any infidel has to be beheaded," he said - adding, "It was so bad. What is the benefit of killing innocents? It was awful, scary. I was depressed, I didn't want to do these things. I cried."

"We were given dirty food - rice and beans [and] sometimes soup, but it had worms in it," Taha said. "The slightest infraction - being late for prayers, failing to hold your gun right - would result in a beating."

The young boy, constantly terrified, experienced first hand how painful it was to be beaten by sticks.

In April, more than half a year after they were first captured, the chance for freedom finally came, when Taha was allowed to visit his uncle's family, who resided on the outskirts of the city. They seized the opportunity and Taha and three members of his family fled. Finally, Taha and his family found safety in the Rwanga refugee camp in Dohuk, northern Iraq.

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