Yazidi girl kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq escapes from Gaza a decade later, officers say

A Yazidi girl kidnapped from her residence by ISIS terrorists in Iraq when she was simply 11 years previous has been reunited along with her household after years stranded within the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Iraqi and Israeli officers mentioned Thursday.

The girl, recognized by Iraq’s Overseas Ministry as Fawzia Amin Sido, now 21, was kidnapped together with 1000’s of different Yazidi ladies from northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Area in August 2014. In line with a report within the Jerusalem Submit, she survived years of sexual and bodily abuse by the hands of a Palestinian ISIS militant she was compelled to marry, and that she was moved to Gaza a number of years in the past.

Sido returned to Iraq and was reunited along with her mom and the remainder of her surviving household in Sinjar, northwest Iraq, on Wednesday. 

Steve Maman, a Jewish Canadian businessman typically known as “the Jewish Schindler” for his efforts to assist Yazidis escape ISIS captivity, posted a video on social media Thursday displaying the second the household was reunited after 10 years.

“I made a promise to Fawzia the Yazidi who was hostage of Hamas in Gaza that I might convey her again residence to her mom in Sinjar,” Maman wrote in his submit on X. “To her it appeared surreal and inconceivable however to not me, my solely enemy was time.”

David Saranga, the director of the Digital Diplomacy Bureau at Israel’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs, mentioned in a separate submit that Sido had “lastly been rescued by the Israeli safety forces,” with out offering any particulars of the operation. 

The Israel Protection Forces mentioned on Thursday that the operation was led by the protection ministry’s Coordination of Authorities Actions within the Territories in collaboration with the US Embassy in Israel.

The Iraqi Overseas Ministry didn’t point out Israeli involvement in its assertion, however mentioned Sido had been freed “by way of joint efforts between the [Iraqi] Overseas Ministry and the Nationwide Intelligence Service” in coordination with the U.S. embassies in Baghdad and Amman and with Jordanian authorities. The ministry mentioned the method had taken 4 months. 

Maman advised the Jerusalem Submit that Sido escaped from her Palestinian captor’s household in late 2023 after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike. She then sought refuge in a protected home inside “strolling distance” of IDF forces, however spent a month ready for permission to go away Gaza, he advised the newspaper.

The IDF mentioned Sido “was not too long ago rescued in a secret mission from the Gaza Strip by way of the Kerem Shalom Crossing” and crossed by way of Israel into Jordan earlier than touring residence to Iraq. 

The Free Yezidi Basis estimates that greater than 2,600 Yazidis stay lacking a decade after ISIS’ documented genocide towards the spiritual minority group. 

ISIS militants are believed to have kidnapped greater than 6,000 Yazidi ladies and women as they overran the Sinjar mountains in northern Iraq in 2014. Many have been bought as intercourse slaves after which bought or traded between the terrorists throughout their years answerable for giant swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Yazidi ladies are nonetheless rescued with some regularity from the sprawling al-Hol displacement camp in northern Syria, the place they’ve continued to reside trapped amongst ISIS fighters.