Ezidi boy rescued from IS hoping to be reunited with mother in Canada

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) –  A Yezidi (Ezidi) woman, currently living in Canada as a refugee, is hoping to be reunited with her 12-year-old son after discovering he had been rescued from the Islamic State (IS).

Nofa Zaghla, from Sinjar (Shingal), says her family was separated in August 2014 when they were captured by IS.

After images of her son, rescued by the Iraqi forces in Mosul, spread across Iraqi social media, a relative living in a camp reached out to her.

“Because of [IS] being so evil, and torturing boys and killing everyone that doesn’t do, as they say, we didn’t think we would ever see [him] again,” she told CBC.

Zaghla said the Iraqi army took photos of him right after he was rescued and posted them online in hopes of finding relatives.

In a video sent to his mother, the boy pleaded to be reunited with her.

“Canada, please help me. I want to go to Canada with my mom,” the boy said.

The boy, Emad Mishko Tamo, had been liberated from IS by Iraqi forces in Mosul earlier this week after having lived under IS rule for three years.

He is currently staying with his uncle in a refugee camp in the Dohuk Province in the Kurdistan Region.

During the Mosul liberation operation, Emad suffered a bullet wound to his arm as well as stomach injuries.

Zaghla was kept captive for two years after having been separated from her eldest sons and husband. She hasn’t seen them since.

“We will never forget what they did to us — the torture, the pain, everything they put us through,” she said.

She managed to escape with her four children after an airstrike struck the prison where she was being kept.

They spent nearly a year in a refugee camp in the Kurdistan Region before being brought to Canada as government–sponsored refugees.

The family and local Ezidi association are now advocating for the Canadian government to bring Emad to Canada.

Hadji Hesso, the director of the Ezidi Association of Manitoba, said he spoke with federal immigration officials and is hopeful the boy will be reunited with his mother.

“It’s amazing he’s alive, but there are so many thousands who aren’t or are being held by [IS] militants,” said Hesso, who arrived in Manitoba as a refugee in 2000.

Following the 2014 emergence of IS in northern Iraq, the militants carried out mass executions and imprisoned and sold Ezidi women in markets in Syria and Iraq as sex slaves.

According to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) figures, IS extremists enslaved 6,417 Ezidis.

So far, 3,048 Ezidis—1,092 women, 334 men, and 1,622 children—have been rescued or have escaped IS, but thousands remain in captivity.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany