MOSUL, Iraq— Iraqi and Kurdish forces have helped two Yezidi girls, aged 25 and 6, to flee from Mosul’s newly liberated district of Maamoun on Monday, where the two girls were kept safe by a family in the city, moving them house to house for three months to avoid being recaptured by the ISIS militants.
Speaking to Rudaw hours after their dramatic escape, the 25-year-old woman, whose name Rudaw does not reveal, said conditions had become “unbearable” over the past three months after the offensive had started to retake Mosul from the militants.
“We had very little food and water in the past month while under siege. The conditions were horrific,” she told Rudaw after arriving in the safety of Iraqi and Kurdish held areas north of Mosul.
The woman said that the militants had brought the 6-year-old girl to the house where she was being held last year, and had no knowledge of the whereabouts of the little girl’s parents.
“One day, a year ago, they brought her and I started taking care of her,” the woman said.
Kurdish local officials said they had tried to locate the 6-year-old’s parents in Kurdistan Region and were hopeful they could find them.
“We have done everything to make sure that both these brave girls reunite with their loved ones and have had some success in tracing their families,” said Shex Mahmoud Mizouri, a Kurdish local politician.
The 25-year-old woman has already found some of her relatives in Kurdistan Region but her own parents are in Germany where they sought asylum two years ago, she said.
"I want to see my uncle," she said in reference to the only close relative she knew was still in Kurdistan.
An Iraqi soldier involved in helping the two girls said he had been in contact with authorities in the Kurdistan Region and had learned about the girls’ location through his Kurdish contacts.
“It was really heroic of this young Iraqi soldier to put his own life at risk and help these two wonderful girls to safety,” said Mosul Deputy Governor Hassan Allaf.
The two girls had been living in a house in Maamoun district west of Mosul with a family. The family helped the two girls to escape ISIS captivity three months ago, and had to move them house to house every now and then to avoid being recaptured, Allaf said adding that the ISIS militants were searching for the older girl "because she was educated, and can read and write."
The family also fled Mosul to Kurdistan region along with the Two Yezidi girls.
Iraqi forces recaptured the Maamun district on Sunday as part of the fresh offensive to liberate the western half of the city that began last week, aftre they declared the full liberation of the eastern half more than a month ago.
Some 2700 Yezidi children have lost one or both parents to the ISIS since 2014 after the militants overran their communities, according to an earlier report compiled by a governmental office in Kurdistan Region.
The report says that nearly all of the children currently reside in camps across the region with no or limited professional treatment available for them.
The majority of the children, some 1750 of them, have lost their fathers while nearly 470 have lost their mothers and another 350 children lost both their parents.
According to the office, of the 6255 Yezidis who were kidnapped in August 2014, 3878 are still in ISIS captivity with nearly 1800 of them being women and children.
The number of the Yezidis killed by the militants could be as high as over 3000 but no accurate data is still available since many of the victim families have left Iraq and Kurdistan for Europe and it has been increasingly difficult to verify the number of fatalities.
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