Excluded, abandoned: Children born under Islamic State era still paying heavy price

Displaced Iraqi children play at Hassan Sham camp, in al-Khazer, Iraq November 22, 2020. Picture taken November 22, 2020. REUTERS/Amina Ismail

AL KHAZER, Iraq (Reuters) - Excluded, vilified and sometimes simply abandoned: such is the price paid by thousands of children in Iraq born to suspected Islamic State militants.

At the Hassan Sham camp for displaced people in northern Iraq, five-year-old Aisha, whose father disappeared after joining Islamic State, is pestering her mother because she wants to go to school.