Kurdistan Region rescue office says 3 Ezidi girls freed from ISIS
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region’s office dedicated to the rescue of Yezidis (Ezidis) the so-called Islamic State kidnapped announced on Tuesday that it had rescued another three girls.
Hussein Qaidi, head of the Duhok office for the rescue of Ezidis, said the girls are between the ages of 16 to 19, adding they were kidnapped along with their families in 2014 in the village of Kocho.
“They are now in a safe location and will be reunited with their families in the Kurdistan Region in the next few days,” Qaidi told Kurdistan 24.
“Our office will intensify and continue our efforts to find the remaining missing Ezidis no matter the difficulties.”
As of now, about 3,450 Ezidis have been rescued from an estimated total of 6,417 kidnapped or otherwise missing, and about 2,900 remain missing, according to the Kurdistan Region’s office in charge of their rescue and repatriation.
The emergence of the Islamic State and its violent assault on Sinjar (Shingal) in August 2014 led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Ezidis. Most of them fled to the autonomous Kurdish region, while others resettled in neighboring countries in the region or Western states.
Others were not as lucky and remained stranded in the war zone, where they experienced atrocities and mass executions at the hands of the terror group for years.
Militants subjected women and girls to sexual slavery, kidnapped children, forced religious conversions, executed scores of men, and abused, sold, and trafficked women across areas they controlled in Iraq and Syria.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany