Eight Kurdish Yezidis Freed from IS Captivity
Yazidi migrants in northern Iraq.
Hussein Qa’idi, head of the directorate, confirmed to BasNews that the rescued Yezidis are all from Sinjar and they were abducted by the extremists back in August 2014 when the city was overrun by IS.
Three of them are children and five are women, the official said, noting that Kurdish security forces have transferred them to Duhok province of Kurdistan Region where they reunited with their families after more than two years.
Qa’idi thanked Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani for sparing no efforts in supporting their campaign to rescue every Yezidi abductee, saying that nearly 2,900 Kurdish Yezidis have so far been freed from the jihadists’ captivity; but yet more than 3,500 others remain at the hand of IS.
He also criticized the central government of Iraq for failing to provide any help to rescue the Yezidi abductees.
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.
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.