Delayed by lockdown measures, two Yezidis finally return to Kurdistan, reunite with family

Members of the so-called Islamic State have abducted nine members of Eido’s family, herself being the last one to be freed.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Early Sunday, two seventeen-year-old Yezidi (Ezidi) girls were finally able to reunite with their families in the Kurdistan Region after a border closure due to the coronavirus disease prevented their return from northeastern Syria.

Layla Murad Eido and Ronia Faisal Miskin were abducted by members of the so-called Islamic State in 2014, when the terrorist organization overran Ezidi-majority areas in northern Iraq’s Nineveh province, committing acts widely recognized as genocide.

The northeastern Syrian Ezidi House organization, an entity dedicated to affairs relating to the ethnoreligious minority, found Eido and Miskin 40 days ago at al-Hol camp. The sprawling facility is located in the Kurdish-controlled regions of the war-torn country.

The camp primarily houses families and individuals affiliated with the Islamic State, reportedly holding over 68,000 people in late 2019—94 percent being women and children. Among the residents are also Ezidi girls, women, and children, who were taken captive when the terrorist group took control of the town of Sinjar (Shingal).

The authorities in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) have coordinated with the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Ezidi Rescue Office to facilitate the return of Ezidis to their families in the Kurdistan Region.

However, KRG shuttered all of its border crossings in early March to limit the spread and transmission of the highly-contagious coronavirus disease, effectively pausing the repatriation process for Ezidis found by AANES authorities in Syria.

Waiting for the Semelka crossing to reopen, the two young women stayed with the Ezidi House in the town of Amuda, northeastern Syria, until Sunday, when they were able to enter the Kurdistan Region. Their families and other members of the Ezidi community greeted them as they entered the autonomous region.

“I cannot describe my happiness, as I return today into the arms of my family, six years after my kidnapping,” Eido told Kurdistan 24. The terrorist organization abducted nine members of Eido’s family, herself being the last one to be freed.

Miskin has had dozens of her extended family taken away by the militants. Kurdistan 24 could not immediately find the exact number of those that have been freed.

The two girls would still undergo a two-week quarantine, as part of a KRG coronavirus regulation, after which they can return to Shingal to their families.

According to Ezidi Rescue Office data, the whereabouts of over 2500 Ezidis is still unclear.