After six years of separation, two Yezidis to reunite with family in Kurdistan Region

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Two Yezidis identified in Syria’s al-Hol camp will be reunited with their family in the Kurdistan Region after six years of separation, confirmed an official.

Their repatriation is taking place upon the request of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s Yezidi Rescue Office, its chief told Rudaw on Sunday.  

"A Yezidi girl and woman named Runiya Faisal Miskin and Layla Murad Aido [respectively] who had been taken out of the al-Hol Camp in Western Kurdistan will be repatriated to the Kurdistan Region via the international Fishkhabur border crossing, reuniting with their family members," rescue office head Hussein Qaidi told Rudaw on Sunday.

Qaidi added that due to the coronavirus containment measures in both the Kurdistan Region and northeast Syria, Miskin and Aido were not permitted to cross the border last month. The two will need to spend 14 days in quarantine before joining their families, according to Rudaw's Nasir Ali.

Thousands of Yezidis were killed, kidnapped, and displaced when the Islamic State group (ISIS) swept into the predominantly Yezidi areas of Shingal, west of Mosul, in the summer of 2014. Shingal remains a disputed territory claimed by the Iraqi federal government and Kurdistan Regional Government. 

According to the latest data from Qaidi's office, of the 6,417 Yezidis who were taken captive by ISIS in Shingal and its outlying regions, approximately 3,530 have been rescued, whereas 2,887 remain unaccounted for, he added.

More than 66,000 people, mostly families of ISIS fighters who were killed or detained in the fight against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) since 2014, live in the camp.Its population is almost entirely women and children.

As has previously been the case, officials did not specify how they identified Miskin and Aido at al-Hol. Qaidi said many Yezidi women and children remain at the camp.

Last June, the Yezidi Party for Freedom and Democracy (PADE) established two teams to search for missing Yezidis in northeast Syria, known to Kurds as Rojava. 

Their office told Rudaw at the time that nearly 300 Yezidis were still at al-Hol.