Islamic State crisis: Mother fears for son at Mosul school

Thousands fled from Mosul after it was overrun by Islamic State in June

When a new school year began in Iraq this month, children from Mosul reportedly returned to a new curriculum created by the jihadist group, Islamic State (IS), which captured the city in June.

One mother spoke to the BBC World Service about life in Mosul and her fears for her eight-year-old son.

I have one son. He's in his third year at school. I've decided to send him back to school but I'd prefer to keep him at home and never let him out.

I'm really scared for him. I want to prevent him from seeing horrible things on the street. When children are out on the street they see weapons, armoured vehicles, the militants' black uniforms, convoys of cars. It's very scary for them.

Everything has changed for schoolchildren, even simple things like calling the country the Republic of Iraq has changed - it's now the Islamic State.

So all of these things have changed dramatically - the curriculum, the subjects children learn, everything. Physics, mathematics, lots of subjects have been dropped. Even singing and sport, all of this has been stopped.

Normally, when you go to school, you learn songs and things like that. But all of this has been replaced by verses from the Koran - readings and chanting. I'm worried and I'm scared that my son will be brainwashed.

There's also another reason why I don't want my son to go to school and that's because his father was killed. We don't know exactly who killed him but it was by IS militants and the reason I'm so scared for my son is because he keeps saying: "These are the people who killed my dad."

I don't want him to go out and say these things because these people are ruthless. They would do horrible things to him.

Life is very difficult. We have no electricity, no gas - we cook on wood - and everything is very expensive. For five days in a row we haven't had any electricity.

There is no freedom - the Islamic State has forced the niqab [a veil for the face that leaves the area around the eyes clear] on us. You cannot go out as a woman without a "protector" - a husband, a father or a brother. And it looks like they've taken us back many centuries to the year 10 in the Islamic calendar [AD 632, the year of the Prophet Muhammad's death].

If I could leave, I would. But we are like prisoners - it's not possible. We are like prisoners under their control. There are people who accuse us of wanting to live under the rule of Islamic State willingly, but it's not like that. It is forced upon us - we are their prisoners. There's nothing we can do about it - we don't have any means to fight them or do anything against them.

They will cut your tongue out even if you call them Isis - you have to say Islamic State. There's no freedom for youngsters - no cigarettes, no choice in how they dress, nothing. Everything has been taken from the young generation.

Even now, the new rules say you cannot leave your house unless you know that you are visiting someone, and then you have to tell them where you are going. They are even checking houses for former police officers. We don't know where they are taking them or what they are doing with them - no-one knows anything.

There is no future, the future is gone.

This Iraqi mother spoke to the Weekend programme on the BBC World Service. We are not naming her to protect her identity.