Three Ezidis, including 14-year-old girl, freed from IS captivity in Iraq

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – The Baghdad Operations Command on Thursday announced the rescue of a Yezidi (Ezidi) girl in a northern Baghdad suburb from Islamic State (IS) captivity, as well as two other Ezidis elsewhere in the country.

According to a statement by the Operations Command, Iraqi forces “managed, with the help of intelligence and security efforts in Baghdad, to free a 14-year-old Ezidi girl” in an area northeast of Baghdad on Wednesday.

The statement added that her kidnapper, an IS extremist, was apprehended too.

“[Iraqi] forces arrested the terrorist kidnapper who confessed to belonging to the IS group in Nineveh and is responsible for the implementation of many terrorist operations, including the abductions of Ezidi girls,” the Operations Command revealed.

In another incident on Wednesday, Iraqi officials announced the release of two Ezidis originally from the Sinjar (Shingal) region but did not mention where the abductees were rescued.

Following their emergence in 2014, IS invaded the Ezidi-populated town of Shingal and committed one of the most egregious massacres in recent history, murdering and kidnapping thousands from the ethnoreligious minority’s community.

Hundreds of thousands of Ezidis were forced to escape the area and seek safety in the Kurdistan Region.

According to United Nations estimates, there are about 3,000 Ezidis who remain unaccounted for since the genocide.

A study published by researchers and experts at an Israeli university in February determined that Ezidi women who experienced severe trauma under IS captivity were suffering from a new, complex post-trauma disorder called C-PTSD.

The two-month study involved dozens of women, all in their twenties, from four refugee camps in the Kurdistan Region.