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The Current Transcript for May 23, 2017

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

All acts of terrorism or cowardly attacks on innocent people, but this attack stands out for it's appalling sickening cowardice deliberately targeting innocent defenseless children and young people who should have been enjoying one of the most memorable nights of their lives.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: British Prime Minister Theresa May seething over the carnage and terror created by a late night attack in Manchester. They're still trying to piece together what happened but even without all the specifics the seeming intent of another bomb at a concert teaming with young effervescent fans has done its damage from those it killed to those it has left traumatized to those not knowing. In a moment we'll hear from a witness and from those already trying to connect the dots on last night’s attack on fans at the end of Ariana Grande concert in Manchester and then, prolonged terror.

SOUNDCLIP

I want my voice to be heard and to reach all the corners of the earth. We want everyone to know what has happened to the Yazidi girls and women and to all the Yazidi people.

AMT: She was 14 when the armed men of ISIS encircled her community forcing desperate families up in a rocky mountain where there was nowhere to hide and she, her sister and her mother became victims of the deliberate brutalization and sexual enslavement of Yazidi women and girls. Somehow they managed to escape and reunite in a refugee camp where now the youngest sister Beshra still a teenager wants the world to know how ISIS has tried to eliminate an entire culture. It was in that refugee camp that she met Canadian journalist Sally Armstrong. In half an hour, Sally brings us the story Beshra wants us to hear. And, she's got the kitchens and she keeps taking the heat.

SOUNDCLIP

Ultimately it does feel to me like I am judged by a different set of standards than my male contemporaries are, and I am tired of it. It's not fair.

AMT: Jen Agg has restaurants in Toronto and Montreal but her success in a tough business often still comes with a side of judgment served cold. Her story in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Manchester concert eyewitness says explosion was 'loudest noise I've ever heard'

Guests: Jess Kelly, Shashank Joshi, Jess Kelly, Adam McClean

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Noise]

Oh my god. What happened? What’s going on? Oh my god!

AMT: The sounds of chaos. Late last night in Manchester England as twenty one thousand fans were leaving an Ariana Grande a concert. The singer had just left the stage when what police say was a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device right where the Manchester Arena leads to the Victoria train station next door. By the end of the night at least 22 people were dead and close to 60 more injured. It was the most deadly attack to hit Britain in a decade. Jess Kelly is a student from York England and she was at the concert and she joins us from Manchester. Hello.

JESS KELLY: Hi.

AMT: Where were you when the explosion went off?

JESS KELLY: We were saved at the very end of the concert. We were just about and the [unintelligible] seated area you can see the office to go to the concession area which takes you out. And then, yeah, that's when we heard the explosion and saw everyone running and screaming.

AMT: Did you know what it was right away, what did you think?

JESS KELLY: Straight away we thought that it was a bomb we thought they were under attack. Yeah we just thought they were some, we just tried to go in the opposite direction to-- everyone trying to get out. And we were going towards where we thought was safe. So, yeah.

AMT: And where did you go, what did you do?

JESS KELLY: So we went back into the arena. We have actually sought the station and we were going to lie on the floor. We thought people would come in with weapons or anything but, thankfully that didn't happen.

AMT: Right because you just didn't know so you thought that something could happen like it happened in Paris maybe.

JESS KELLY: Yeah yeah that's what we thought.

AMT: You must have been terrified.

JESS KELLY: Yeah it was really scary.

AMT: So you were right at that exit going toward the train station?

JESS KELLY: It was just a bit through the last minute. That was quite close to where we were exiting. So we did not see the actual explosion but it was like it was the loudest noise I’ve ever heard. And I there's no doubt in my mind that it was a bomb. Yeah. It was just [Unintelligible] so, everyone looked to the left where it was and they just all screamed and ran and we knew it was serious.

AMT: There were a lot of young children or teens there, too?

JESS KELLY: Yeah like a lot of Ariana Grande's fan base. Very young and young girls mainly we saw so many young girls there either with their friends or with their parents. So, it's just really bizarre that they would target so many young kids. It's just awful.

AMT: And I understand the friend you were with is a nurse.

JESS KELLY: Yes she is.

AMT: So, right away you were you two trying to help? Were you looking to see who you could help?

JESS KELLY: Yes. So when we last left and when we saw like everybody lying on the floor [Unintelligible] trying to like hide and stay safe. We were two of the last people to like leave. So, by the time we got out and saw the people we [Unintelligible] to everyone that we saw a lot of injured and we tried to help them but most people already have a nurse with them. And by that point the paramedics have just arrived. So there wasn't really much you could do. So we asked the police what we should do and they just said to just like go home quickly as quickly as possible.

AMT: Get away from the site because they didn't know what else might happen.

JESS KELLY: Yeah like that was the point when they didn't know what happened maybe they didn't even say it was a terrorist attack then.

AMT: Have you had any sleep overnight.

JESS KELLY: Honestly, not really. I tried to sleep a couple hours and I remember lying there thinking that hours and hours have gone by and then I looked at my phone and then it not even few hours and I've been asleep for about 10 minutes. So, really, no, not any sleep.

AMT: What have you been thinking?

JESS KELLY: It’s just like as time goes on it’s just sinking in more, I can’t actually believe we were there and witnessed it as it happened we are currently waiting for our trains to go home in Manchester station now and something happened in one of the shopping centers and it’s all being evacuated. So we just like really want to get out of the city.

AMT: The very fact that they did evacuate a shopping center the day after this I guess just unnerves you again?

JESS KELLY: Yeah it's just like I’m in this place walking around like with big guns and stuff and like that doesn’t happen here and like was quite really weird this place literally everywhere.

AMT: Do you feel in danger now?

JESS KELLY: Well, because we're about to go into the train station. We just feel that, like, on edge. Yeah. Like in a big public area like we just want to go home now.

AMT: Yeah yeah. So you're going home to York, on the train?

JESS KELLY: Yes.

AMT: Well, I'll let you go. Thank you for speaking with me today. I'm sorry you had to experience all of this.

JESS KELLY: That’s okay. Thank you.

AMT: Thank you bye bye.

JESS KELLY: Bye.

AMT: Jess Kelly student from York England she was at that concert. She joined us from Manchester England.

SOUNDCLIP

This is my daughter Olivia. I haven't seen her since five o'clock last night. She was at the Ariana Grande concer with her friend. I'm more worried sick if anybody has seen her please contact the police. Contact somebody, let them know you've seen her. Even if you think you've seen her just let the police know please. She's in dark close off the shoulder top. Her hair is dark. She's got glasses on. She's got thigh high boots on . Please just somebody got out of it. I'm worried sick. We've not slept. We've got family out looking for us. Please please somebody must’ve seen her at some point. Just let me know you’ve seen her. Let the police know let anybody know you've seen her, please.

AMT: Well that's a woman named Charlotte Speaking on BBC television today she's holding a picture of her missing 15 year old daughter Olivia pleading for details on whereabouts as a number of parents still don't know where their teenagers are after that attack. Adam McCLean is a reporter for ITV in Manchester England. He joins us now. Hello.

ADAM MCCLEAN: Hello it's good to be with you.

AMT: First of all the police arrested someone within the last few hours what can you tell us about that.

ADAM MCCLEAN: That's right. Well we know that initially this morning police told us as the clear picture emerges of exactly what had happened last night where they told us exactly how many people have been killed and how many people have been injured. They told us that they were believing that it was the work of one man and that man died at the scene at the Manchester arena, but we do have that use of an arrest and of course police tell us they are very very keen to examine whether this may well be linked to a larger plot a larger group and that what we know we don't go in with that arrest this morning.

AMT: You got to the scene very quickly last night what did you see?

ADAM MCCLEAN: That's right. I was within maybe 10 - 15 minutes of that explosion at 10:33 local time. When I arrived, you never quite know what you're going to arrive to as a journalist and it became very clear very quickly that something very serious had taken place I noticed police officers shouting for the walking wounded to make themselves known to officers, and very shortly after that police officers made their way down from Manchester Arena and began systematically clearing the area to make it safe and ensure that no further threat was posed to members of the public. And then also seeing people that were injured that have been, you know, we saw people limping. We saw a man that had been very close to the blast and described that flash of bang the smell and a wush of air and noticed that there were balls, metal balls strewn across the floor. And it involves some form of improvised explosive which we now know to be the case.

AMT: The people who were leaving and the eyewitnesses who you're talking to there were a lot of young people there, huh?

ADAM MCCLEAN: That’s right. This particular artist attracts a young crowd. It was teenagers teenage girls teenage boys leaving a concert a Monday night in Manchester wanted to have fun wanted to have a good time. Something the city is very famous for. We're a confident city we are a place that has a pride of swagger. People came here to enjoy themselves. Young people here to enjoy themselves on a Monday night and leaves with with memories of the most horrific things. And 22 people will never go home from that. It was just awful hearing and speaking to the people affected by it in the city.

AMT: We just heard that clip of the mother still looking for her daughter. How many people still don't know about their kids?

ADAM MCCLEAN: It's very difficult to say, that picture emerged overnight. There was a particular hotel in one part of the city where 50 children—strangers taking it upon themselves to organize the looking after those children and helping to reunite them with their families. There has been a chaotic situation in that respect of putting people back in touch with each other. I can't give you numbers in terms of how many people are still unaccounted for at the moment but a lot of work is being done by the police a number has been set up so that people that are looking to get in touch with missing people can contact and begin that process of finding out where that individual is. So which it is it is quite unclear at the moment it becomes clearer as the day goes on, exactly how much of an effect this is having on people.

AMT: It's interesting how people really did step up and try to take people in who didn't know where to go. The British prime minister today was saying that Manchester has seen something terrible but also seen people at its best overnight.

ADAM MCCLEAN: That's right. It's one thing that the city does well. We've had nothing on this scale in recent memory but an explosion back in 1996, as a result of a [Unintelligible]. On a different form of terrorism and the city rebuilt itself, it stuck together. The same happened this morning and throughout last night. I noticed there were taxis with signs in the windows: free transport for anybody that needs it. There were taxi drivers taking people, injured people to hospitals getting them home and reuniting them with their loved ones. So, the community has pulled together there is a northern pride and an old spirit that is pulling the city together. But it is tense it's still very tense. We heard that, just a few moments ago that the main shopping center in the city was evacuated. People began running past those shouting: Run, quite literally were running for their lives as it was. There is a tension. It isn't business as usual as we might like it to be but the city is doing its best.

AMT: The evacuation of that shopping center is related to then this arrest they made that we still don't know quite what that arrest is about?

ADAM MCCLEAN: There is a possibility that it's still quite unclear exactly why the center was evacuated. We know that armed police made their way into the center. People describe the smashing of glass and people running quickly from the center. That prompted a panic across the large city center area or people running away from what's (noticed at Manchester on Deyos said) which itself was affected by that bomb back in 1996. It seemed to provoke a panic that it was being evacuated. And we don't really know whether it is related to that arrest but there are some suggestions that it may be. As police make arrests, they will undoubtedly be acting on intelligence that they gather and I think you know they've been doing a remarkable job in very quickly acting not just in turning up at the scene last night to help those that needed the help most but also in investigating this. We know that that is moving quickly as we're told.

AMT: OK well Adam thanks for bringing us up to date.

ADAM MCCLEAN: Thank you. Pleasure.

AMT: Adam McLean reporter for ITV in Manchester England. Well we're going to talk more about the security situation I'm joined by terrorism expert Shashank Joshi is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute that's a security think tank in London England. Hello.

SHASHANK JOSHI: Hi. Good morning to you.

AMT: A suicide bomb detonates right near the exit that leads to the train station somebody obviously knew what they were doing.

SHASHANK JOSHI: I don't think so necessarily. Of course the use of a bomb is more sophisticated than the sort of vehicular or knife or gun attacks that we have seen in the U.K. Four years ago for example with killing a soldier or more recently in outside parliament. But I wouldn't necessarily call that sophisticated I think sophisticated would be a coordinated attack that was prolonged perhaps the use of multiple devices the use of some sort of non-metallic bomb like the kind developed by al Qaeda in Yemen, that has caused the laptop ban on U.S. and other flights. This seems to me to be a sort of fairly conventional attack. They were not able to penetrate the layers of security to get inside the arena which would have caused far more damage. There's no indication of other collaborators or gunmen at the same time that would have caused more panic. I think this is what the U.K. authorities had expected given that the threat level was severe. And I think that they will have prepared for this with the Emergency Services and Intelligence. And by and large I think we've cope with it reasonably well.

AMT: They have said that they have been able to identify. They believe they've identified the bomber. How significant is that?

SHASHANK JOSHI: I think it's very significant because of course when you identify the bomber you are able to look at his or her in this case his phone records perhaps his Internet records any communications he may have made. You may be able to interview his family and associates. You can establish whether there's a broader network that may be operating perhaps that presents an imminent threat elsewhere. So I think it's absolutely fundamental to be able to identify the gunman because nothing can proceed without knowing that.

AMT: And what do you read into the fact that there was an arrest made? Is it too early to really tell what that's about?

SHASHANK JOSHI: It's much too early to tell because of course in these situations some of the early arrests may yield very valuable intelligence in other cases they're simply mistaken. Perhaps it's the numbers that were dialed on the suspect or the attackers phone. Perhaps someone who is assumed to know information about his whereabouts who looks suspicious but actually turns out to know very little. I think you know there's always a very confused environment in these early periods. And I think we wouldn't draw too many conclusions just yet. But what I do think we'll be going on is a furious effort to piece together all of the individual’s movements everyone who he contacted. And I think very importantly to understand what links, if any, did he have to organized groups like al Qaeda or more likely Islamic state.

AMT: Was there any indication that an attack like this could be imminent?

SHASHANK JOSHI: I wouldn't say imminent but as I said the U.K.'s threat level has been at severe for four years. It was raised to severe by the current Prime Minister Theresa May when she was serving as home secretary. And what that means is an attack is considered to be highly likely. It doesn't mean necessarily imminent but it does mean that it's more likely than not to occur at some point despite the precautions that have been taken. The U.K. intelligence services according to the MI6 Chief Sir. Alex Younger had said that they had disrupted 12 different terrorist plots in the past four years. So, for me, it's hardly surprising that one should get through. And of course, this is the first really mass casualty attack since the 77 bombing but they were 12 years ago in comparison with France, we've got off reasonably luckily I would say.

AMT: And we've just received an e-mail from our alert desk saying that ISIS is claiming responsibility. I don't know what we can believe.

SHASHANK JOSHI: I think it's very important to understand that a lot of ISIS supporters or members claim responsibility for these attacks and certainly celebrate them. That's not quite the same thing as an official claim of responsibility. If your desk is reporting it I assume that's credible then I assume that means that perhaps ISIS as a central organization has made a formal claim. What I would look for, for example, is a video they often release videos sometimes of the attackers showing that they had full knowledge of the attack showing the attacker pledging allegiance to the group. That's what we saw in some of the other cases in Europe in the U.K.. In the absence of that I would be skeptical of these claims. ISIS supporters have a history of claiming lots of things in order to burnish the credentials and the potency of their group without necessarily having much substance to back that up.

AMT: What do you read into the fact that Ariana Grande, a pop star with a largely young female fanbase, that the attack is done at that concert?

SHASHANK JOSHI: I would say that you know there has been a tendency in Europe in recent years to move towards attacking soft targets, concert, venues, restaurants. We saw this in Paris with the (Basque clan), transport hubs are very common. And that's partly because they are less well defended. They don't have to penetrate the same kind of armed police that you would at parliament or Buckingham Palace, say. It's also because it's a sort of powerful symbol on what many jihadists and extreme Islamist would consider decadence, corruption, vice. So it sort of fits with that cultural Islamist message as well. But it's nothing out of the ordinary at all. I think if you look at Belgium, you look at Franc, you look at many other places around the world, Orlando for example in the United States, attacks on concert halls and venues are part of the course and an organization or a philosophy that is willing to enslave minorities in Iraq and murder even other Muslims in the Middle East. I don't think has any compunction whatsoever about mass mass murdering children.

AMT: We have to leave it there we're out of time but thank you Shashank Joshi for your thoughts today.

SHASHANK JOSHI: You're welcome.

AMT: Shashank Joshie senior research fellow with Royal United Services Institute. This is the current Stay with us.

Back To Top »

'I want my voice to be heard': How two Yazidi sisters escaped ISIS captors

Guests: Sally Armstrong

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Well still to come restauranteurs Jen Agg has taken heat for fighting sexism in the industry. In half an hour I'll talk to her about how she's been changing menus and challenging stereotypes in the restaurant world. But first what genocide looks like through the eyes of two Yazidi girls.

[Sound: Gunshots]

AMT: When the battle to drive ISIS out of Mosul is over the world will turn its attention to the dreadful aftermath: the mass graves, the wrecked homes, the missing and also to the more than 5000 women and girls who ISIS took and systematically and repeatedly brutalized. In March, Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney accused the U.N. of inaction over the genocide of the Yazidi people at the hands of ISIS.

SOUNDCLIP

If we do not change course history will judge us and there will be no excuse for our failure to act. Don't let this be another Rwanda where your regret doing too little too late. Don't let ISIS get away with genocide.

AMT: Well, last July journalist Sally Armstrong went to Iraq and met two young women sisters in fact who were captured by ISIS and held as sex slaves. Fifteen year old Beshra and 16 year old Badia spoke to her from a refugee camp near the hook in the Kurdistan region of Iraq about what they had endured at the hands of their captors for months before they managed to escape. Beshra and Badia are Yazidi, that is an ethnic and religious minority group. They were attacked on their traditional homeland by ISIS militants who considered them to be unbelievers in their idea. You may remember this was three years ago ISIS swept through northern Iraq and they surrounded the Shingal Mountain region, the area that is home to tens of thousands of Yazidis, who then became trapped and left to die without food and water. In late February Sally Armstrong went back to the refugee camp to meet again with the Yazidi sisters Beshra and Badia who are still wondering if they'll ever be able to make it back to their home. Sally Armstrong joins me in our Toronto studio to tell us about that trip. Hi Sally.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Hello, Anna Maria.

AMT: Tell me about the first time you met Beshra and Badia.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Well I was in Iraq last year to do a story about the Yazidi people. I wanted to know who they were I wondered why they were persecuted. I mean this is supposedly the 74th genocide of these people. So I want to know what was being done for the women and girls who had been held as sex slaves and had escaped. Beshra and Badia are now living on a UN tent with their five brothers, a sister and their mother. Their father is missing. And as you know Anna Maria, so many girls have been brutalized they're afraid to speak out. But these two sisters insisted they would share their story. Listen to what Beshra said to me on that first visit.

SOUNDCLIP

Do you think you need a chance to say to the world in front of that man this is what happened to me? That would make me very happy.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: You know I couldn't believe the strength she had when she said that.

AMT: So is that going to happen will she get her day in court?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Well you know there's people working on a truth commission but so far nothing has been decided.

AMT: So that was in July. You went back again in February, Sally. Why did you go back to that refugee camp to see those two?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Well we all knew ISIS had been chased off Shingal Mountain where about 300000 new Yazidis live and that had happened 18 months ago. But in January I heard from Beshra and Badia and I heard that they were planning to go home to Shingal. Sounded to me like a pretty daring plan and I wanted to be there if they did that. So I return to the refugee camp in late February to try to hook up with them. I mean finding them was an ordeal in itself. Ten thousand people live in this camp and we're driving up and down rows and rows and rows of tents because we'd made a mistake.

AMT: And they all look alike, those camps.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Of course. Anyway, we finally found them and they invited us into the same eight metre by 8 metre tent where we met them the last time, only this time it was the end of February. It was late afternoon. It was getting dark and it was snowing. There's no electricity in the tent so it was dark in there they have one battery powered lamp. You know the thing that struck me though, was they welcomed us into their home as though we were long lost friends that had returned for a visit. They made tea and they started to talk. They wanted to tell us everything that had gone on since last we met which was last July. The thing I noticed right away was Beshra is more the storyteller. She's a year younger than Badia.They're 16 and 17 now but she's taller and she's certainly more vocal. Badia, bless her heart, she's quiet she's withdrawn probably because of the dreadful ordeal these kids have gone through. Badia’s eyes tell you she's barely coping. Whereas Beshra’s eyes flash with anger when she speaks about what happened to her. As the conversation continued and I realize this was not going to be a story about the joyful return home. This was really the story of what genocide looks like in the eyes of two teenage girls.

AMT: That is so. It's so disturbing, huh?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: It was really sad. But you know, as I started to talk to them I wanted to know what their life was like on Shingal Mountain where they grew up. And that's that's how we began our formal discussion. Listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

Our house was very big with a large garden and a lot of trees. The garden we had back in Shingal, it was like heaven. Whenever we got angry in our home we would go out to that garden and instantly our hearts would be open and our sorrows and anger would go away.

AMT: They are so poetic, Sally, but you can hear they miss it, huh?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: They do. They do. Beshra, the younger sister she carried on talking about the music they play at the celebrations and you could tell they had a big life. They had a lot of fun living in that community.

AMT: And then everything changed for both of these two young women and their whole community in 2014. ISIS shows up.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: You know for nine days Beshra and Badia and their parents were trapped in their home in Shingal. When they got into their car and tried to escape, they were captured by the ISIS fighters. The militants took them to a nearby town where they were held with other Yazidi. But then Beshra explains that the families were split apart and she was taken to a house filled with other captive Yazidi girls.

SOUNDCLIP

There was a girl with us her name was Shilon. She asked the ISIS members if she could wash her hands. She went to the bathrooms and she committed suicide. After that, whenever someone asked to go to the bathroom or take a shower or maybe wash their hands or their face when ISIS wouldn't let them.

AMT: Boy that tells you about the desperation.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Really. And Beshra’s captors then took the girls to ISIS fighters.

SOUNDCLIP

How did ISIS treat you when they kept you? They treated us very badly. They beat us every day. And the thing that I really hate is that they forced us to marry a person who was not part of our religion. Who did you marry? They forced me to marry someone named Zarhan. H real name was Abu Arkan. He was older than my father. He was Iraqi and could speak Kurdish. But in front of me he only spoke Arabic. What did he do to you? He was very bad with me and he beat me every day. He raped me and he forced me to undress myself. How long were you with him? I was married with him for one week.

AMT: She's how old at this time?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: She was 14 when this began.

AMT: 14. And so, a forced marriage and a week after that forced marriage what happens?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Well she'd been captured for several months before that and she was forced to marry this guy at that time. But before that she had been given to several fighters as a sex slave. You know they think that's their right. She told me she was sent to a different fighter every day and every day that fighter would rape her. So, after she was forced to marry Abu Arkan and she kept repeating his name, Anna Maria. It's amazing, because they have pseudonyms as well. But she knew both and she kept repeating it.

AMT: She wants you to know his name.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: She wants people to know what happened to her and what his name is. And from there she was taken to a place called Barge, where all the girls had to take mandatory Islamic studies. But you know remarkably she and her cousin were then able to escape. There's nothing like a young girl telling you a story of an escape. She dropped her voice she said it was dark outside, a guard was cleaning his gun, the other men were praying. And then she said we softly softly crept out of the house started to run. This is this is actually the story she told me.

SOUNDCLIP

The guard at the door was praying and he couldn't see us. Another guard in the garden was cleaning his Kalashnikov. He was also unaware. So we escaped. When they found out we were gone, they used their cars to search for us in the middle of the night. I couldn't speak Arabic but the girl I escaped with could and she told me that the ISIS members were shouting: You are animals, you are bitches. We will capture you and kill you wherever you go.

AMT: Absolutely [unintelligible].

SALLY ARMSTRONG: They got away and Beshra told me that she managed to keep her cell phone with her. You know a lot of the girls told me they had cell phones and they managed to charge them. I thought that was a bit astonishing. They were captured, captured, after all. Anyway, Beshra contacted her uncle who was near Shingal Mountain and he sent Peshmerga fighters to where she and the other girl were hiding to escort them to the camp where her mom and her siblings were.

AMT: Oh my God. So that's Beshra. What about her older sister. What about Badia.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Well but it was also assigned to several ISIS fighters and she tells a terrible story of abuse. You know she'd been separated from her family but she was with her cousin. The Yazidi kids tend to hang out with their cousins because they live together they marry each other they stay within the community and she, Badia, said to me that the men who captured her beat them everyday all the time. They used cables to whip them. And she said to me they did whatever they wanted to do to us because we were in their hands. I asked her at one point what the ISIS fighters were like. She spoke right up. She said they're filthy, disgusting, they're smelly. They have huge beards that are not properly kept. The protocol was fascinating to hear from her. But you know, Badia obviously struggles more with the telling. She was pulling out her fingers and clasping her hands and her eyes looked so sad. Whereas Beshra, she's a little more effusive. She raises her voice slightly when she speaks out about what happened to her. But still, she would pull her scarf and she would look away when she described the horrors she lived with. Anna Maria that the depravity both girls faced, including being brought back to their parents and leaving them with their parents for a few days and then collecting them again for another fighter. It was astonishing.

AMT: And this would just go on and on for them. It's hard to listen to you tell it now.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: it went on for weeks they were shifted from town to town. Three days here, two weeks there. Eventually it was taken with her cousin still to another town. Unlike her sister, she managed an escape. She'd been in that final place for about two months when she said she and her cousin were left in a room and she noticed that the window was open so, early one morning she jumped out of the window and for six hours these two kids ran. Listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

We locked ourselves in a room and went out a window at four in the morning and until 10 a.m. we were walking and running. And then we reached a place that was completely destroyed by airstrikes. We stayed there until we saw a Shepherd and my cousin said I'm going to ask him for help but I didn't let her because I was worried he was an ISIS member. She insisted that he wasn't an ISIS member and went and asked for help. What did he do? The shepherd said I will go back home and ask my family, my mother, father and sisters and I will bring them here to help you. But a car with ISIS militants was stopped on the road so, he brought back his father and brothers and they brought men's clothes and we disguised ourselves as men so that ISIS didn't recognize us as girls and we escaped with them. And where did they take you? They took us back to their house and we stayed there for more than 10 months. They were very good to us. They helped us a lot. The father and the boy said that you were like my sisters and my daughter.

AMT: So much humanity from that family after that kind of abuse, huh, Sally? And so they're cared for by complete strangers for 10 months she said? How did she end up at the refugee camp?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Well the whole the area they were in was being bombarded by now the world was beginning to respond to the ISIS fighters and there were airstrikes all over the place. It really wasn't safe to go anywhere. The father of the shepherd boy had in fact called their families and said that they were safe. So they bided their time and when the father felt it was safe he called their relatives and Badia’s male cousins came to get them and took them back to the camp in Dahuk.

AMT: Did you speak to their mother about what happened to these girls?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: You know I tried to and she was the perfect hostess. She was absolutely lovely with us. But then she clammed up and Beshra said my mom is incapable of talking about this. Listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

Because my mother was also captured by ISIS. She was traumatized. Even now whenever she talks about ISIS or Shingal she collapses and doesn't wake up for one hour. She has a psychological issue now that she can never talk about what happened in the past.

AMT: And where's their father, Sally?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Well, he was captured by ISIS and they don't know where he is. They talk as though he's a prisoner and he'll be coming home. But who knows. I mean unless he had some skill that ISIS could use. I don't think it's likely that he survived. But they are waiting for him and they told me over and over again they will not leave this camp until he returns. But Anna Marie, It's been two years now and really almost two years and they don't know where this man is.

SOUNDCLIP

We will never go back to a Shingal Mountain without our father. If he is not with us, we will not go back until he arrives and then, as a family we will go back. Shingal is our homeland, to our last breath we will never forget what ISIS did to us. But even if our father comes back we're scared that if we go to Shingal something worse will happen to us.

AMT: So they're caught in this limbo of waiting. What's life like for them?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Well as the time I was with them and I spent time with them in July and again in February they hardly ever leave the tent. They've been waiting in this place for their father to come back for ISIS to be kicked out of their country but also for their own healing to begin. Occasionally, they walk down this row of tents maybe a 100 meters to the bazaar but it's very, very rare that they leave the tent.

AMT: Sally, they say they're waiting for their father before going home but other Yazidis have gone back to live, right?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Well a few have, very few. I made the trip to the mountain without Badia and Besh-Era.

AMT: How far away is it?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: It's about two hours and a bit depending on how much time you spend at the checkpoints.

AMT: Yeah, two hours is an eternity.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: That would be easy. Yeah, from the camp. But Anna Maria, it's not safe to go there now. I mean the place is flattened. You approach from one side you go up the mountain down the other side in order to get into the town of Shingal. But on the mountainside you can see what happened. There's a rusted out stripped carcasses of vehicles all over the mountain and families tried to escape by driving their cars up the mountain finally abandoning them crawling, running, climbing to get away from ISIS. But I guess the really haunting thing for me was the top of the mountain is swept clean. There's not a scrap of evidence of the horrendous scenes the world witnessed that terrible August in 2014. Remember people were calling on cell phones that were begging the international community to create a quarter so they could escape. They had no food no water no hope, at the top of this mountain. Babies died of dehydration. Some young girls jumped to their death to avoid capture. You go down the other side of the mountain and into this eerily quiet city. There's nothing but destruction. I went with a Peshmerga soldier to a mass grave and there was bleached white bones are skulls. There's even a woman's dress poking out of this hastily plowed ground. But then Anna Maria at that soldier pointed to the distance he said that smoke you see that's ISIS there near.

AMT: So they're not that far away from where you were.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: I was really shocked. I spoke to a Lieutenant Colonel Jaden Darwish who's in charge of the Peshmerga soldiers in the region and he told me they exchanged fire with them on a pretty regular basis. But he also said a large number of new recruits, not Iraqis, foreigners are joining ISIS daily. It's difficult to imagine anyone returning to this area anytime soon. It was the governor of Dahuk who said to me ISIS is flexible. They're immobile. They can set up quickly in another place. And he said amazingly, there's always locals who will join them.

AMT: So Badia and Beshra. Is anybody helping them as they wait in that refugee camp what's going on?

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Well I spoke to Hussein Hassoun. He's a Yazidi man on the high government commission for the recognition of genocide against the Yazidis, Kurds and other religious and ethnic groups. Here's what he said.

SOUNDCLIP

I think these two girls they stay in their tent because they don't know what to do. They need help and they don't get the proper help. And these people they they need to talk to somebody who is specialized, a professional psychologist, about what has happened to them. We need time to treat these cases. It is not a matter of international organizations coming and talking to them for two hours making a report or just writing down the story. No. These girls they need a treatment program. They need a special care which we don't have.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Well he's right of course. But Maria I believe there's another reason Badia and Beshra don't leave their tent. And I think that is the stigma associated with sexual violence. These girls are now seen as damaged goods on the way out of Shingal, we stopped in a town called Tunie which is where some of the Yazidis have dared to return and it was there I met The Shaykh of Shingal. His name is Kadir Cosso. You know what, he’s one of those cranky old religious zealots. You know the type. But I wanted to talk to him about how the community was going to receive these girls, there's 5000 of them who have been sex slaves to ISIS. And this is what he said.

SOUNDCLIP

We will embrace the girls because of the international community. If we don't embrace what the international community won't accept it.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: I felt certain by the way he said that and the way he waved his hands about that he had more to say. I pushed him, I pushed him to tell me more about the girls. And he became angry, so I pushed harder. And in fact, the Yazidi man I was with, Hussein Hassoun, suggested I back off. I tried once more because I knew, I was sure there was something more this man wanted to say and he got quite disturbed with me and dismissed everyone in the room with a wave of his hand. So I packed up my gear and everyone stood up to leave. But Peter Breg was packing up his equipment and one microphone was still running when The Sheik said this .

SOUNDCLIP

We don’t accept other blood. The girls aren't pure. We are the purest of humans our blood cannot be mixed with other blood. So if a Yazidi woman has been raped. It means she is not pure anymore. Blood from outside is in her, so she is no longer Yazidi.

AMT: Oh my God he actually says it, Sally.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: He did. And Hussein Hassoun was astonished by those remarks saying they don't represent the views of the Yazidi community at all.

SOUNDCLIP

I don't have any words actually to use for such a person. You know, the main issue we got to know and these girls got to know is, it was not their fault, it is not their choice. They didn't want this. So whatever they have been through it is done to them. It wasn’t a free choice so they are welcome back. How we should show them a lot of respect.

AMT: So there's two views here on how the girls will be treated by their own community after being so brutalized, and even against that uncertainty when you first meet Beshra she makes it clear she wants to talk about it.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Absolutely and she told me in no uncertain terms she doesn't want their story being forgotten.

SOUNDCLIP

I want my voice to be heard and to reach all the corners of the earth. We want everyone to know what has happened to the Yazidi girls and women and to all the Yazidi people. We want the international community to seriously work on this issue.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: The girls have a lot to say about what comes next. But I have to tell you that even though they told me emphatically that they would wait for their father they would not return to Shingal Mountain with their father. When we were saying goodbye to them we were outside the tent and both of the girls said we cannot stay in this camp. We've applied for refugee status in Australia. If our father doesn't come back we will go there.

AMT: So they're facing some of the realities of that weight and not seeing their father but they're also hoping for a real future.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: They are. But you know, it struck me that this is how genocide works. In addition to the killing of thousands of Yazidis, these survivors they left uprooted, traumatized. But these girls they made such a plea that everyone know what happened not just their personal story the story the whole community.

AMT: An amazing story but so disturbing here the real reality for two young women. Thank you Sally.

SALLY ARMSTRONG: Thank you.

AMT: Sally Armstrong freelance journalist in our Toronto studio if you know her work has been relentless in tracking the effects of war and conflict on civilians particularly young girls and women. Stay with us in our next half hour Jan Agg restauranteur, a fixture in the restaurant business for 20 years tells her story in a new book called ‘I Hear She's a Real Bitch’. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is the current

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'I don't see myself as a bitch': Jen Agg challenges 'bro culture' in restaurant business

Guest: Jen Agg

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to the current.

SOUNDCLIP

I just need to pay attention. It's just what I was thinking about. It means like watching the kitchen all the time like it just getting it in your head that when you walk by that you just check out the corner of your eyes you see what's happening. Is it like doing a different thing.

AMT: Well it's 30 minutes until the door's open at Grey Gardens restaurant in Toronto. The front of the house staff are huddled to talk about their plan for the night. Jen Agg the restaurant's owner leans over one side of the bar, jumping in as the instructions are given out.

SOUNDCLIP

One thing I want you to do is not worry so much about water and worry more about big picture. And just like always seems to [Unintelligible]. Remember when we talk a little bit about that last night. Food Writing is so much more important than water the servers can be on top of the water. [Unintelligible]

AMT: Gen AG is a writer and restauranteur who has opened a number of bars and eateries in Toronto and Montreal. Most famously The Black Hoof. She has just written a book about her journey in the restaurant world it's called ‘I Hear She's a Real Bitch’. Jen Agg is with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

JEN AGG: Good morning.

AMT: That's quite the book title.

JEN AGG: Do you like it.

AMT: Where did it come from?

JEN AGG: It was just, you know, I can't really remember the exact genesis or the exact moment I do remember having a conversation with friends and sort of debating whether it's ‘I Heard She's a Real Bitch’ or ‘I Hear She's a Real Bitch’ and the friends were kind of, no, the urgency it has to be like, present tense.

AMT: OK, because people say that about you?

JEN AGG: I think that they might. I have heard, this is true.

AMT: Oh. You’ve heard that they hear?

JEN AGG: You know it's a small industry things get back.

AMT: OK, so and we hear you working the restaurant just at the beginning there. We don't hear a lot but you don't pull punches?

JEN AGG: I mean yeah I think that's sort of the thing about the title. It's not really about me being a bitch. I don't see myself as a bitch. It's about the idea that someone who is direct, talks the way that I do doesn't pull punches as you say is perceived as a bitch when they're a woman.

AMT: OK. Well let's go back to the start of your career owning businesses you actually started with a bar. What did you know about opening a bar when you launched your first bar.

JEN AGG: I mean I thought I knew everything about it. I was 21 and I thought I can do this. I got this. And to be to be honest you know running a bar or owning a bar is a different ballgame than a restaurant and it wasn't it wasn't that hard to pick up I'd been managing a bar working in a bar for a couple of years and I knew the basic steps. I knew the dance moves and you know you just add on citrus runs and payroll and a few other things and you're running a bar.

AMT: How did it end?

JEN AGG: It was an eight year run. So it sort of fizzled out at the end in time with my marriage fizzling out it was kind of a perfect ending. I think it was fine.

AMT: You learned a lot?

JEN AGG: Yeah I definitely did. I learned a lot about how not to be a boss and a lot of ways. And I you know I was growing up I was in my 20s I learned a lot about life and how to be.

AMT: Incorporating a business.

JEN AGG: Oh, that yeah, that was really dumb.

AMT: You declared bankruptcy and you hadn't incorporated.

JEN AGG: Yes so, I didn't. I mean that's just an ignorance of youth and of having no experience. I had not incorporated business and everything was in my name. And so at the end when there was all of this unpaid tax owing which I had no idea about while it was happening it really fell hard on me. So yeah, I really had no choice but to declare bankruptcy. We paid off all of the small suppliers and at the end I was like well I can't there's nothing I can do. I have to do this so, it was really it was a really difficult thing to go through.

AMT: Even after that experience you still wanted to open a restaurant. What kind of understanding did you have of that world?

JEN AGG: I mean I had worked in restaurants. It was definitely a steep learning curve at the beginning and I was really grateful there was a manager named Patrice who was on board at the beginning I learned a lot from her. She had a lot of fine dining experience. So, I knew I knew how I wanted the room to feel and I always had a very sort of distinct narrow vision in a lot of ways for how I wanted service to be run. But you know she was able to teach me kind of some of the details like table numbers and you know I was like, we should have table letters, and she was like, no that makes no sense. And I eventually listened to her and learn from our experience that was really, really invaluable.

AMT: Talk to us a little bit more about what your vision was for how that restaurant would look.

JEN AGG: I just wanted to be comfortable and happy in my workspace everyday. So and to me that meant not having to you know wear heels or you know or dress up really, although sometimes I did just for fun at the beginning. I wanted to wear like jeans and Converse. I wanted to listen to, you know, the jingle jingle indie rock that sort of struck my heart with a lightning bolt in my youth. And so I wanted to listen to that and I wanted to listen to it like at a louder volume and I wanted the restaurant to be dark not so dark that you couldn't see but like dark in a romantic and pleasant way. And that really didn't exist in Toronto at that time.

AMT: Did you know you would spawn a trend?

JEN AGG: I mean, no I don't think so. I don't know, I don't think I was thinking like that to be honest. I was just thinking this is cool and this is what I want to do.

AMT: Well you were thinking of charcuterie before charcuterie was really back.

JEN AGG: Right. Yeah and you knew not a lot of people were doing it here. Not really in New York, either. It was definitely an old school thing but you know some people knew how to do but it was it was a very limited skill. And what's really nice about charcuterie, or what I think is really nice about it, I mean other than that it's like delicious. Is that now sort of settled as like just kind of a thing that restaurants do the way they might do kind of purchase better produce or the way that they might have a bread program or whatever it is become part of a restaurant's output. And a lot of places just have it. And it's I think it's sort of overcome it's trend status and has settled into a classicism.

AMT: Well just explain to us more because you're talking to people across the country who may not have been able to go to your restaurant and what you wanted to offer and what you do offer and your philosophy behind it. Just explain that.

JEN AGG: Right. I mean so like the charcuterie program was the real focus. And out of that grew a small menu of nose to tail, people like to call it, but really really it’s like sweet breads, fois gras. I think for a while it was sort of seen as Dear food which is sort of silly and comes from a place of really a certain kind of person not having eaten that food. But like that's that food is eaten all over the world like pig's feet are eaten all over the world and that's what's nice about it too is that this food's become sort of normalized.

AMT: Right, but it wasn't in restaurants.

JEN AGG: No, in some.

AMT: Obviously, and in certain quote-unquote ethnic restaurants it would be there but not in sort of mainstream trendy restaurants.

JEN AGG: No, not a lot. No, it really was very rare back then.

AMT: Yeah. OK. So talk to me about the opening of Black Hoof. What was that night like.

JEN AGG: It was a really chaotic. Restaurant openings are always difficult. Although Greg Garden's recently was so much easier and smoother it only took like a few days to get going, but The Hoof was really chaotic. I didn't know how to run a team in a restaurant. My parents like showed up half an hour early because they have this thing where they like. Even though Scarborough is like 25 minutes 30 minute drive like they'll give themselves an hour. Just in case. Which is like very responsible but always meant that anything that I was ever doing they would be like 20 minutes to 40 minutes longer. And I was like, can you take mom for a walk? You know my mom's trying to hand me her camera. And like, is after batteries for the camera and I'm just like, mom, I'm trying to figure out some stuff here, can you please go to the 7-Eleven and by batteries. So I was like it was just a lot of sort of chaos happening around me. And then it just you know we opened and it was friends of family. I don't remember the night at all. Really, like I remember the pre-service stuff but I don't really remember the service I think it was just one of those things where it just was over so quickly and it was fine and we got through it. And you know realized things like, every time the dishwasher turned on, it’s all coming back to me now, the lights would dim and it’s just all of these things that you kind of learn in the first few days.

AMT: Like a sitcom.

JEN AGG: Yeah. I mean it was funny, so maybe it was like a sit com.

AMT: And it was pretty quiet when the restaurant opened. But then it changed. There was one glowing review in The Toronto Star. How important was that?

JEN AGG: Back then, I don't think it's possible to overstate the importance of a major newspaper review. I think that's changed. But back then we're talking about 2008 which doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but it was significantly a different time in terms of the landscape of social media and the Internet. So yeah, that changed everything. It was [Unintelligible] for the Toronto Star and it was just that this glowing four star review, I mean the food was delicious. And he noticed that the food was delicious and wrote about it really eloquently and I think we were sort of really lucky that he was not the permanent food critic at the start like he was sitting in while the permanent food critic had a baby and I feel like she maybe wouldn't have had such a good time. So it felt like a very lucky thing in some ways. I didn't think that at the time I just thought, obviously someone gets how great this restaurant is, thank goodness. And it just changed everything it was like it went from sort of zero to 60. The Friday-Saturday services that we were having that were like fine but not, you know we do one turn. All of a sudden we're doing like three, three and a half, four turns. Lineups went from like nonexistent to two or three hours. And so I was managing the door at that time and it was like people weren’t used to coming to a no reservation restaurant so that was an adventure, trying to explain to somebody, in minus 15 weather, that we couldn't see them right now but that they could go down the street to this, not amazing bar and like, don't drink the wine and wait for a phone call. Like that was a real education but it worked because people were so excited to be there and eat there that they were actually willing to wait. And you know, there were also ways to come and not wait too, like if you came right at 6 o'clock or if you came after 11, you'd be fine. So once people started coming regularly they'd learn the patterns. But it was definitely like an education process. And like people sometimes didn't like it.

AMT: But it really does speak to the power of review again.

JEN AGG: Yes.

AMT: And that specific time. What role did you play in the day to day running of the restaurant?

JEN AGG: I did everything but cook the food, really. I did all of the hiring all of the training of front of house staff all of the wine list stuff all of the [Unintelligible] restaurant management stuff like fixing of toilets like making sure we had a grease trap company like you know

AMT: All the glamorous stuff.

JEN AGG: Yeah, all the super glamorous stuff. And then I would work service five nights a week, It was really taxing. I got really sick.

AMT: Because you weren’t sleeping at all.

JEN AGG: I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping. Everything was the restaurant. I was completely focused on it. I was there you know 16 hours most days. It was an intense time.

AMT: You compare it to a dance.

JEN AGG: I think it's what I see as the dance is more service and the operation of service. And when things are going smoothly which is the most beautiful thing ever to sort of watch as servers spin elegantly from the past to drop a plate off and then turn around quickly again and pick a plate up and you know the bartender's going out of the way so someone can pass and the cooks are kind of all dodging each other. It can be very beautiful.

AMT: But there's stuff in the wings, too, that we don't see.

JEN AGG: I think that’s the thing about The Hoof, you see it all.

AMT: We don't want to see your anxiety, though.

JEN AGG: [Unintelligible] I’m super chill.

AMT: So, as the success of your business grows how are you viewed in the industry?

JEN AGG: I mean I think that's a difficult question for me to answer because I don't really know what's in other people's heads and hearts all the time. My feeling often is that I get pigeon holed or I get ignored by my peers for all sorts of reasons. But I've also created this island for myself with The Hoop and Rum and Cocktail Bar and now with Grey Gardens which is very very close by, where that doesn't matter to me.

AMT: You say in the book it's always felt like the city is quick to hang me for even a whiff of arrogance while they encourage and applaud ego and macho swagger in my male contemporaries.

JEN AGG: That is a true fact. I think as women we're really not allowed to be confident, I don't even want to say arrogant because some people might see it as arrogance but I see it as confidence. I see, you know, I am good at what I do. I'm good at asking for what I need and what I want from people. I don't beat around the bush. I'm direct. When all of these qualities are ostensibly good qualities in leadership, but the moment you are that person who is also a woman, I feel like I'm beating a dead horse when I when I say this, but then why is the horse still moving. Like I feel like it bears repeating. And I do repeat it and I say it over and over again, but ultimately it does feel to me very much, like I am judged by a different set of standards than my male contemporaries are. And I'm tired of it. It's not fair. What do you do.

AMT: Well you write about bro culture. What is that in the restaurant world?

JEN AGG: It's like I don't really know how to describe it but it's just a thing that's a dominant cultural leadership style that exists particularly in the restaurant business. And I think it's often well-meaning. It's not necessarily always malicious but it's male centric. It's very male centric.

AMT: You say there can be women who are part of the bro culture?

JEN AGG: Sure. I mean we'd have beat this thing if we get together on it. You know I think it's definitely of course women are upholding the patriarchy too.

AMT:And you actually talk about how in the French tradition of chefs learning it's quite an abusive system. Tell me what what you learned?

JEN AGG: The European model, I don't want to say French personally but the European model in general is hierarchical which I believe is necessary for a business like this to run you do need somebody to be in charge to make decisions. I mean you can have sort of a democratic process within that hierarchy which is what we try to do. But the one we're talking about through egomaniacs who are meeting out abuse in the form of like thrown pots and hot tongs and you know yelling and screaming and it's not just a bit like physical it's also the emotional abuse of of somebody who's forcing you to try and please them. Well, maybe cutting you down at every opportunity and sort of rebuilding you into this like militaristic cook who responds to treats. You know it's really like it's a really strange thing when you see this like horribly abusive service. And then at the end of the night it's like here's a beer, ada boy, we're all chill, we're all cool. And they are. And then the problem is a lot of these young men, and it's usually young men somewhat young women too who grow up in that system often turn around and run their kitchens in exactly the same way because that's how they learned.

AMT: We see that in the in the reality shows on cooking right. They're often very abusive.

JEN AGG: It is a cycle of abuse in general. I think that's literally a textbook example of a cycle of abuse. And I think it's changing. I think it's a little bit different here than the sort of physicalities of say of these hard chest pokes or the trays being thrown at your head, but it's still an emotional abuse and you don't need to run a kitchen like that. I see it I know it.

AMT: Is that something you guard against in your own businesses?

JEN AGG: Yeah, definitely. I really work hard to keep that out. And when you start to see if somebody is being like that, you get them out or you manage it and it's really challenging. Thats why it's so important to make sure that the people that you're working with kind of see the world of restaurants in the same way you do.

AMT: You know this is a business that that you love. You said at one point you couldn't imagine working for someone else.

JEN AGG: I do love it.

AMT: What is it about this business? Is it because you love all those long hours?

JEN AGG: You know what? To be honest, I don't hate that. What I love about it is the camaraderie the sense of home and place that a restaurant becomes for you. You go there every day and you check in with people and you genuinely care how they're doing and you sit down together and you eat staff meal together and it sounds sort of trite but it's really beautiful. And sometimes it makes me really emotional just this idea of a chosen family. It's not fake it's you bond really hard and well with people that you're spending that much time with. And that's why I'm so careful about who I hire because I realize that I'm going to be spending all this time with them. I better like them. That's really, really important to me. That's really what I love the most about it. Is this like sort of almost tribal aspect.

AMT: Before I let you go I want to ask about food and drink what are you excited about now.

JEN AGG: Saké, Saké, Saké. Oh my God I can't get enough. But I mean it's perfect with so many things. I I love it I think it's going to have a real a real moment. There's like there's a Saké bar in New York [unintelligible] which is really fun. So yeah definitely I see Saké is like a next wave thing for sure.

AMT: OK. Well we'll leave it there then. Thanks for coming in.

JEN AGG: Thank you. That was so easy.

AMT: Jen Agg, writer and restauranteur. Her new book is called ‘I Hear She's a Real Bitch’. Her newest restaurant is Grey Gardens in Toronto.

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'I'm going to be killed': How this Montreal woman survived the Rwandan genocide

Guest: Odile Sanabaso

[Music: Theme]

AMT: In 1994 Odile Sanabaso was a young girl living a happy normal life in Rwanda with her parents and five of her siblings. But her playful childhood was thrown into chaos when the war and genocide began. Odile was swept up in the violence that killed up to eight hundred thousand people mostly Tutsi like herself in the midst of the Civil War Odile and her father were separated from the rest of the family as she tells us her moment of disruption came not solely from the genocide but from the act of a family friend which fundamentally changed her. Here is Odile Sanabaso of Montreal describing her moment of disruption.

SOUNDCLIP

I was nine I was nine years old at the time. I was separated from my dad so I was really on my own, most of the time. One day I was going to a neighbor's place and that neighbor has been friend of ours for forever. I mean my elder siblings knew her when they were born. It's a very good friend of ours and we would invite her to a events. And you know, we have her in all the family pictures and all that. But she's a Hutu. So I went to see her I'm like you know it's a safe place to go to because at the time you would go hide to a Hutu’s place, then, they will be like, we can’t really keep you here because it's not safe for us to [Unintelligibile]. And the code was that either you kill or you don't hide because if you hide then you too are going to be killed.

So, I go to that woman's place and I'm like Oh yeah hi how are you, very happy to see her. And you know she brings me in the kitchen and she gives me food because you know at the time it was that eating was a luxury you would spend a week without eating. So you know she brings me in the kitchen and gives me some food and then she's like I'm going to go outside a little bit. I'll be right back. Just stay here. And you know it. Right. I don't know. It's a five minute after she calls me outside. She's like Oh, Odile, come over. I'm like why? She’s like, just come, you know.

And I get out and all they see, I was like, I was not expecting anything bad to happen. And she literally just called up five guys, killers to, you know. I have something for you over there, and I got out of the house and I see five tall guys waiting for me. And I was like, oh my god. I looked at her, what happened? She’s like, ah, they're waiting for you, go see them. Oh God like that. That moment. You know, you're so young. You go to somebody because you trust them. You're like, that's my parents’ friend and I don't know I didn't know what to say. But honestly I lost trust in her and in the world, that woman really changed my life because. And it took me it takes me a lot to like trust anybody. And I really have really trust issues because of that woman. So she's delivering me to those five men. I’m Shocked total shock. And I'm thinking it's over. It's over, like they ‘re the doors, if I can say. So, I look at her. I don't think I said something. I just I couldn't run away. There's five men standing there doing their job. Where would you go? Like even if you run away, they're going to catch you. It's that point in time where you know it's over. So I'm like ok I'm going to be killed. I'm scared I'm shaking and all that.

So I go with them. I walk with the guys. And then one of the guys one of the five guys of the group was like he knew my family really well. He was one of the killers. But for some reason he had empathy and what they do they would they would go around pick up you know one or two people would group them. And then there's another group that comes to pick them up and bring them to killing them. So he points at the group of people, he's like that's where we're bringing you. And if you look further, you're going to see guys coming over. Another group of people that come in to pick you guys to go kill you.

Yes I was scared from the beginning but my first instinct was to try to look in that group of people if I would recognize somebody like my mom or my sister or you know. But then while I was looking, he’s like, so either you run away now because there were like the woods all over basically. So it's like you can run away and go there or that's your final destination. And I like I had a [unintelligible] of that happening. Is that possible. I believe he was. I know her and I want somebody else to kill her and not me. So at that moment I just want the woods and I don't know what happened to him.

I'm sure he was in trouble for doing that. But I'm very thankful for him. He took a big risk though I know he was he was not clean because he was killing other people. But as for me personally, I do I'm very thankful to him.

Right after the genocide my siblings living in Canada I came to pick me. I had three siblings a brother and two sisters living here. And you know I was the only survivor. So when they came to pick me just to you know give me a better life. I came in 1995 and I went back to Rwanda in 2000. And it's like Sadly, she was one of the people I had to see in that trip and I was like yeah I want to go see this woman. I can't believe she's still alive you know. And then you know it's really funny but she remembered me like she saw my face and she was shocked. Like I went I went there by surprise. I couldn't tell her you know I went up I. Hello. And she was at first you know distant like I was like, do you remember me? And she was like, who are you? I'm like stop joking you can’t forget me you know. Are you Odile? She mentioned my name. You know when you do bad in life? There are some things you do that affect you even though you think oh I did something but it’s not the end of the word. But I just noticed how she remembered me like six years later she'll remember me she remembered my name and her reaction. Probably she thought I was dead because, you know, she put me in the hands of the devil, basically.

Oh my God. I could see she was panicking and just by seeing my face, she couldn't even talk. It took her like a lot of time to like, then you know, say what she had to say. But we didn't say like, that was it, all I wanted was to see her and then show her that I'm alive and I'm stronger and you know I'm good.

AMT: Such an amazing story. That is Odile Sanabaso of Montreal describing her moment of disruption. If your life was disrupted in some way big or small for good or ill we would like to hear about it. Send us an e-mail about your story at our website CBC dot see a slash the current. Click on the Contact link and please put moment of disruption in the subject line again CBC dot see a slash the current. Once you're there you can check out other stories in our project including moments of disruption after a startling home invasion, a concussion, a gift from a generous benefactor. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio 1 for q. Andrew McCarthy is the guest today for Tom Power. Remember you can always take the current with you on the CBC Radio app. Use it to browse through past episodes of our program start listening in just a few seconds. I'm Anna Marie Tremonti. I am on assignment for the rest of the week. Duncan McCue will be filling in for me. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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May 23, 2017 full episode transcript

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