After 10 years of mourning, Yazidi girl returns alive
Shafaq News/ Yazidi girl reunites with family after beingbelieved dead following ISIS attack on their village in 2014, in the Duhokprovince of the Kurdistan Region.
The survivor, Silvana Khader, revealed to Shafaq News thefate of her family members: "My father and older brother were killed byISIS, and we don't know anything about the fate of my mother and youngerbrother. They are still missing."
A relative, Raad Ahmed, stated, "After a long searchwith no results, the family believed she had perished, so they dug a symbolicgrave for her in the Kojo cemetery."
Silvana's return represents a beacon of hope for Yazidisurvivors still searching for their loved ones, serving as a continuousreminder of the tragedies left by years of conflict and terrorism in Iraq.
Kojo, her village, was one of the most devastated Yazidiareas during ISIS’s 2014 invasion, where massacres and brutal crimes occurred,resulting in the displacement and scattering of its population and the loss ofhundreds of its children.
TheYazidis, a Kurdish-speaking minority counting about 500,000 in Iraq, werepersecuted by ISIS after the group overran large swathes of territory in Syriaand Iraq beginning in 2014.
On August 3, 2014, ISIS militants seized control of Sinjar.According to statistics, approximately 1,290 Yazidi civilians were murdered,and since then, more than 70 mass graves and numerous individual graves havebeen discovered in Sinjar.
