Police say freed Yazidi girl from Islamic State captivity in Mosul
Federal Police chief Shaker Jawdat appears in a video with a 11-year-old Yazidi girl freed from Islamic State militants in Mosul.
Police chief Shaker Jawdat said 11-year-old Farah Dakhil was released from the militants’ grip in al-Tenek district in western Mosul, where the forces have been engaged in fierce encounters with IS.
“We referred her to a court in Hamm al-Alil to ensure her rights and protection,” Jawdat stated.
Thousands of Yazidi Kurds fled Sanjar, a Mosul region on the borders with Syria, to nearby mountain areas following its fall to Islamic State militants in August 2014. The extremist group massacred, enslaved and tortured thousands of that ethno-religious minority.
Data from March revealed that 2915 Yazidis were rescued from Islamic State captivity, including nearly 1500 children, while more than 3500 were still in the extremist group’s hold, including more than 1700 women.
The Kurdish-speaking community came to the spotlight when Islamic State militants, taking over large parts of Iraq, victimized its members, committing massacres and subjecting them to forced conversions, sexual slavery and other reported atrocities.
Iraqi forces recaptured eastern Mosul in January and have been fighting since mid February to retake the west, where at least 400.000 people are believed to be stranded in the battlefield. The conflict has so far dispalced more than 500.000 people.