Two women carry hidden cameras, bravely film life in Syria under ISIS
Two Syrian women risked their lives to carry hidden cameras - lodged inside their niqab - through Syria to capture what life is like under the brutal ruling of ISIS extremists, in hope that their freedom is one day restored.
The video was filmed by the two women who walked the deserted streets of the Islamic State-held Syrian city of Raqqa during winter and commissioned by Sweden's Expressen TV.
Here, a woman must be covered head to toe and is only allowed out of the house with another woman, if anyone interacts with them they will be punished.
Bravely, the women know they will be stoned to death if the are exposed but they want to show the world what their lives are like in hope that one day freedom is restored.
The women, referred to as Om Omran and Om Mohammad, walked around the deserted neighbourhoods and into shops in al-Raqqah completely covered and wearing face veils.
Heavily armed ISIS terrorists can be seen patrolling the grey city streets lined with rubbish and rubble from destroyed buildings.
Black marker is used to scribble over the faces of women who are on the cover of hair dye packets, one of the women says that seeing a woman's face uncovered on a display like is punishable.
"I'd like some hair colouring," one of the women can be heard asking the shop attendant who asks "what colour?"
The woman questions the shop assistant asking why they covered up the hair colour and later tells the camera that women have 'lost femininity'.
The two also speak about the gruesome public executions saying extremists shoot their victims and decapitate them before attaching their head to a stick and leaving their bodies to rot on the road.
Oum Mohammad, reportedly said: "I could see there was a man sitting on the ground. The executioners were lined up, they were dressed in black."
"They execute with bullets, desecrate the body, decapitate it, stick the head on a spike and put it on display at the roundabout."
Scenes from the video also reveal the Armenian Catholic Church which has since been turned into ISIS police “headquarters”.
The Uwais al-Qarni shrine was once of importance to both Sufis and Shia Muslims and has now been reduced to rubble.
In the hidden video, the woman take a taxi and on the radio an anthem can be heard playing which is a song worshipping Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Om Omran tells the camera she constantly thinking of the outside world and hopes to live like that again.
“I long to take off the niqab and the darkness that cloaks us, for good. I can’t wait to dress the way we used to in the past ... to be able to go out in the street without being scared and without seeing weapons or foreigners who have beards and look scary," she says.
“I want to go out alone, free, without having a guardian with me. Nothing matters more than freedom.”
The woman also reveal where the rich residents of Raqqa lived before ISIS drove them out, which are places now occupied by foreign fighters and their families.
"They are from Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Saudis, Europeans, from places in France," Oum Mohammad says, "but the majority is from Saudi Arabia."
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