Elizabeth Tsurkov 

By Cecilia Levine From Daily Voice

Elizabeth Tsurkov told herself that if she made it out of captivity alive, she would speak out.

Now, that's exactly what the 38-year-old Princeton University grad student is doing weeks after her release in a Nov. 5 article by The New York Times.

The idea is to expose the "sadism and vileness" of the Kataeb Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shia paramilitary group that held her captive for 903 days.

"Like anyone else, I don't want the details about the worst moments of my life to be public. But I know that nearly all victims of the Iraqi militias cannot speak up: the militias either killed them, or they are in Iraq or have family in Iraq, and hence continue to be threatened by the militias.

"I made it out alive. I am safe. I can speak out."

Tsurkov, a Russian and Israeli citizen, was abducted in March 2023 by members of Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shiite militia group.

She was leaving a café in Baghdad where she was supposed to meet a woman she'd connected with over WhatsApp, according to the New York Times. She had been in Iraq conducting academic research for Princeton University on the Shiite movement led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The Times reported that her captors zip-tied her hands, placed a bag over her head, and sexually assaulted her after forcing her into a black SUV. She was then tortured for months, beaten and whipped across her body, Tsurkov shared with The Times.

The report said Tsurkov’s captors accused her of being a spy and ignored her attempts to prove otherwise. She was strung up and tortured while being held in a windowless room monitored by cameras, where she endured sexual assault and repeated threats of rape, the outlet said. Tsurkov said she eventually gave false admissions to satisfy her captors. Afterward, they allowed her to eat and rest for the first time in weeks.

Without warning, she was later transferred to a new location with different captors, including a nurse. There, she was given books, a television, an Arabic thesaurus, and regular meals. The New York Times described her captivity as a “marathon of psychological torment.”

Tsurkov was released on Sept. 9 by Kataeb Hezbollah.

Click here for the full report from The New York Times.