ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Yazidi woman held in captivity by the Islamic State (ISIS) group was rescued on Saturday by fighters of the Kurdish Women's Protection Units (YPJ) from the notorious al-Hol camp in northeast Syria (Rojava) amid an ongoing security operation.
Internal security forces (Asayish), in cooperation with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the global coalition, launched an anti-ISIS operation in al-Hol camp in late August that sought to remove suspected cells of the terror group from the infamous facility.
The Yazidi woman is from the village of Kocho in the Yazidi heartland of Shingal across the Iraqi border. She was kidnapped by ISIS during their brazen offensive across northern Iraq in 2014, when the terror group seized Shingal and inflicted countless atrocities on the Yazidi minority, according to the SDF.
"ISIS members took us first to Mosul, and then we were transferred to Raqqa where we had been repeatedly raped, enslaved, and sold out in slave markets," the woman told an SDF-affiliated outlet, describing the horrors she and her deaf sister experienced while being sold to different ISIS fighters. It is unclear how long she was held in al-Hol camp.
ISIS overran the Yazidi heartland of Shingal during their conquest of parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, committing genocide against the ethnoreligious group. More than 6 thousand Yazidis were abducted and thousands remain missing with little done to bring solace to the rescued.
The majority of captives are held in the notorious al-Hol camp, according to data obtained by Rudaw English from Khayri Bozani, former head of the Yazidi affairs at the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) endowment ministry.
Located in Hasaka province, al-Hol camp has infamously been branded a breeding ground for ISIS, with Kurdish and Iraqi authorities describing the sprawling facility as a "ticking time bomb," saying the situation in the camp is "very dangerous."
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