Bijar Zubair
A Yazidi girl on Thursday was warmly welcomed by the residents of Semel district in Duhok province days after she was rescued from Islamic State (#ISIS# ) captivity and reunited with family. She had been held by the extremist group for ten years.
Kovan Ido was only 14 when she was abducted from her village in Shingal (Sinjar) district during the extremist group's brutal offensive in 2014.
I am very happy to return, she told reporters after arriving in Semel, adding that ISIS deprived me of my family for ten years.
I did not have any information about them [my family] since 2014, she said in Arabic,unable to speak in her mother tongue after being kept captive for ten years.
Ido was in al-Hol camp in northeast Syria (Rojava), an infamous camp housing tens of thousands of women and children affiliated to ISIS.
On Saturday, she was finally returned to Sinjar, and on Thursday she was warmly welcomed by her overjoyed family and community members in the Semel district of Duhok province.
Iraq’s national intelligence service on Saturday said that she was repatriated by their forces, following a directive from Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani.
“The operation was carried out based on accurate intelligence about her whereabouts in Syrian territory, in order to reach her and return her to Iraq and hand her over to her family,” said the Iraqi intelligence in a statement.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on February 4 announced that Ido was liberated in al-Hol camp by the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) - the SDF’s all-female partner force. The YPJ said that the group handed the Yazidi woman to her family on Saturday.
When ISIS swept through the Yazidi heartland of Shingal in August 2014, committing genocide, the group abducted 6,417 women and children who were forced into sexual slavery and labour. Around 2,700 of them are still missing. Many have been rescued from al-Hol, the notorious camp that houses tens of thousands of ISIS families and supporters.
Ido's return is a bittersweet moment for the Yazidi community. While they are overjoyed to have her back, they know that many other Yazidis are still missing and unaccounted for. The Yazidi community continues to call for international support in bringing the perpetrators of these crimes to justice and ensuring the safe return of all Yazidi abductees.
Al-Hol camp is located in Hasaka province in Rojava. The sprawling camp has been criticized for its poor conditions and insecurity. Many of the residents still hold ISIS ideology and the camp has been dubbed a breeding ground for terrorism. Kurdish forces have conducted several security operations in the camp.[1]