ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A mother and her two children were rescued from ISIS in the group's last shrinking pocket in Syria and returned home to the Kurdistan Region on Wednesday.
"The three persons were rescued from ISIS," Hassan Qaed confirmed to Rudaw. He heads up the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s office rescuing Yezidis.
In the month of January, 27 Yezidis were rescued from ISIS, he added.
His office has documented 6,417 Yezidis – mainly women and children – who were seized by ISIS when the group swept across northern Iraq in 2014.
More than 3,000 are still known to be missing.
Backed by air strikes of the US-led global coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have the militants contained in a small pocket of territory near the Iraqi border. But commanders warn the final fight will be slow, given the number of women and children in the battle area.
And the risk of ISIS will not end with the death of the so-called territorial caliphate. The group still has thousands of fighters across Iraq and Syria and they have the potential to exploit existing societal rifts and security vacuums, US intelligence chief warned on Tuesday.