ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Six Yazidi women were rescued and returned to the Kurdistan Region on Saturday more than eight years after they were taken captive by Islamic State (ISIS) militants, raising hopes that more of the estimated 2,700 Yazidis still missing may still be found, Nadia Murad announced on Twitter.
“The women were still children and teenagers when they were first taken captive in 2014. Trafficked out of Iraq and into Syria, they were rescued on Saturday morning,” Murad tweeted. “They have been flown back to Erbil where they will be reunited with their families, and offered all the psychosocial support they need.”
In August 2014, ISIS militants seized the Yazidi heartland of Shingal in northern Iraq and committed genocide against the minority community. More than 400,000 Yazidis fled. The men and older women who were not able to flee were killed. More than 5,000 were buried in mass graves. An estimated 6,417 women and children were enslaved.
Murad also thanked Turkish authorities who "played an important role" in bringing the captive women back to safety. She did not elaborate on the role Turkey played.
Murad, who lived with her family in the Shingal area, was one of the women taken captive. After she escaped, she publicly told her story and brought the horrors of the genocide to the world’s attention. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 and is a United Nations goodwill ambassador, campaigning for the survivors of human trafficking.
Around 2,700 of the women and children seized by ISIS are still missing. Many of them were brought by their captives when they went to Syria after ISIS’ defeat in Iraq. Some women have been found in northeast Syria’s al-Hol camp, among the families of ISIS fighters and supporters.
“Our condition was good at times and mostly bad. But what tormented us most was that we wanted our parents, and to be with them,” one of the rescued girls told Rudaw’s Lamya Rasul. She said that she was 12 years old when she was forcefully separated from her mother, and given to a man in Syria.
“At first there was a lot of us, in a single hall. But every time one used to come, chose one of us and take her,” the girl added. “We haven’t met anyone after the hall. Only the six of us stayed together.”
Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani established an office to rescue the missing women and children. Murad credited Barzani with assisting with Saturday’s rescue that was the result of weeks of investigation.
The rescue, after so many long years in captivity, “gives us hope that more can be found,” Murad said, appealing for international assistance to help in the search.
Updated at 9:35 am
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