Security arrests 2 Islamic State Yazidi women slavers in Mosul

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) An Iraqi army force arrested on Monday two Islamic State members who used to trade women slaves from the Yazidi minority, a local source said.

“Intelligence teams from the army’s 16th division arrested Heggie Farhan and Mahmoud al-Kassab,” the source told Alghad Press, adding that the pair belonged to the Tel Kaif and Qawsiyat regions in northeastern Mosul. The latter had been wounded at one battle with security forces and lost one of his legs.

“They had used to sell Yazidi women during the group’s control over Nineveh Plains region,” said the source.

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 in 2015 from Iraq’s office on Yazidi kidnapping victims showed that 2640 Yazidis were released from captivity by Islamic State militants over the past two years, but there are 3770 others still in the extremist group’s hold.

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.