Two of the saddest girls you’ll meet

For the last seven years, Assya and Maysa Assaad have lived either under the rule of IS, or locked in a camp in the desert. All they want to do is go to school.

Assya, 15, right, and her sister Maysa Assaad, 12, in al-Roj camp. Picture: Ellen Whinnett

They’re two of the saddest little girls you’ll ever meet.

For the past seven years, Assya and Maysa Assaad have lived either under the rule of Islamic State, or locked in a secure camp in the desert of northeastern Syria.

Brought to Syria by their parents when they were just eight and five, their childhood in Sydney is a fading memory, and their world has shrunk to the 48 tents that make up their compound in the new annex of the al-Roj camp for Islamic State families, near the Iraqi border.

All they want to do is go to school.

In a handwritten letter addressed to “Dear the Australian Government’’, Maysa wrote about Cookie, the stray cat she had adopted in the camp, and said she wished she was at school making friends. Instead, she wrote that she “sit(s) in the tent the whole day with my cat’’.

“All I want is for me and my mum and my sisters to come back home,’’ she wrote.

“I want to … forget about the camp.

“Please take me out of here.’’

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Two of the saddest little girls you’ll meet

For the last seven years, Assya and Maysa Assaad have lived either under the rule of IS, or locked in a camp in the desert. All they want to do is go to school.

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A letter written by Maysa Assaad, 12, addressed to the Australian government. Maysa resides in the Al-Roj refugee camp in Syria.

Asked how they were, Assya, left, replied in an Australian accent: “I’m sick. I probably have diabetes and I have a back problem.’’ Picture: Ellen Whinnett / The Australian

The Australian spoke to Assya and Maysa in the camp at the request of their mother, Bessima, who lives with them in their UN tent next door to the girls’ older sister, Shayma, and Shayma’s four young children.

Asked how they were, Assya replied in an Australian accent: “I’m sick. I probably have diabetes and I have a back problem.’’ She told how she loses feeling in her hands and feet and is believed to have nerve damage at the base of her spine.

Maysa also has an unknown health complaint that causes her to lose consciousness. Bessima described how Maysa once collapsed unconscious on the ground.

“Once we were walking to the shops and she just collapsed to the floor,’’ she said.

“We started screaming for help and no one came. Around her lips went blue and it took her a while to regain consciousness again. I had to hold her and run with her all the way to the gate, there was no medical aid or anything for her.’’

Living quarters in the al-Roj camp in Syria.

The girls’ father Ahmad Assaad is in prison in Hasakah, several hours away, and has had no contact with the family since they all surrendered to Syrian Democratic Forces soldiers in Baghouz, Islamic State’s final piece of territory, in March 2019. He has claimed he brought the family to Syria to rescue his sons, and inadvertently became “stuck’’ in IS territory.

Their two older brothers, who were the first in the family to come to Syria, have both been killed.

Bessima said the family wanted to return to Sydney. She struggled to get by in the camp due to a prolapsed uterus that made it difficult for her to carry water and other heavy objects.

She urged Australians to consider the plight of her daughters and allow the family to return.