SHINGAL, Kurdistan Region — The Kurdish security forces, or Asayish, have arrested three members of the Shingal Protections Units (YBS) in the Yezidi town of Snune on Monday as the YBS fighters were trying to force the Asayish to hand them a young girl believed to have been recruited by YBS a day before.
The father of the girl told Rudaw that the YBS fighters “brainwashed” his daughter and then had taken her “by force” from his house on Sunday.
“They convinced my daughter, and brainwashed her. Then they took my daughter by force,” Khidir Yousif, the father, told Rudaw on Monday.
Khidir said that he had taken upon himself to bring her back from the nearby YBS-held Khanasoor town, armed with ammunition.
“I drove by a car to Khanasoor at dawn, searching for my daughter. I searched for her in each and every place,” Khidir said.
“I had two grenades in my hands. They told me ‘Turn in your grenades, and your weapon, and in return we will give you back your daughter.’ I gave them the grenades, and my weapon, and put my daughter in my car. Then I drove the car [to Snune] and handed my daughter to the Asayish.”
He said that her daughter is in fact younger than her age in official documents.
“Her age in her ID is 12 years old,” he said as he showed his daughter’s identification card to a Rudaw reporter, “But she is in fact ten-years-and-a-half.”
A source from the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Asayish in Shingal told Rudaw on Monday a resident had given the security forces his daughter, asking them to “protect” her.
Later, three YBS-fighters with a vehicle had asked the Asayish in Snune to give them the girl. But the Asayish refused to do so, then the YBS fighters left the area.
The source added that the YBS fighters went back to the Snune Asayish. This time, the source claimed, they tried to use force and used “rude words,” and that is why the Asayish arrested the three fighters and confiscated their vehicle.
YBS commander Zardasht Shingali told Rudaw that they will publish a statement regarding the incident.
The YBS has not yet released a statement.
Relations between YBS and KRG Peshmerga in the area have remained tense over the past month.
Seven fighters of the YBS and its female counterpart (YJS) were killed in clashes with the Roj Brigade, also called Rojava Peshmerga under the command of the KRG on March 31 in the Shingal region.
Both the Rojava Peshmerga (Kurdish soldiers originally from Syrian Kurdistan), who are under the KRG's interior ministry and the YBS have claimed that the other opened fire first.
Rojava Peshmerga forces trained by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) deployed a new regiment on March 30 to the KRG-Syrian border, with planned to locate all of their forces to the border area with Syria.
YBS is a Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)-affiliate group active in the Yezidi area of Shingal.
The rights organization Human Rights Watch said in a report released in December that it had documented 29 cases in which Kurdish and Yezidi children were recruited by the PKK armed wing, the People’s Defense Forces (HPG), and the YBS in the Kurdistan Region.
The PKK denied that it recruits child soldiers, responding to the report and said that it is the victim of a smear campaign trying to force the PKK out of the Shingal area.
The PKK is a signatory party to the Geneva Call, an international nongovernmental organization that promotes adherence to the laws of war by armed groups, including prohibiting child soldiers. The PKK had said that they “strictly abide” by all international agreements, adding that representatives of Geneva Call have conducted on-site examinations of PKK camps.
