Yezidi survivor rescued from Syria returns to family

Wladimir van Wilgenburg 2021/07/21 15:32

In August 2014, thousands of Yezidis were trapped in the Shingal mountains as they tried to escape from the so-called Islamic State. (Photo: Anadolu Agency/Emrah Yorulmaz)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A Yezidi woman rescued from Deir al-Zor province in Syria has been returned to her family in Sinjar (Shingal), an organization for the religious community said.

Zeri Matto Shivan was found in the northern Syrian province with the help of Deir al-Zour’s internal security forces and later reunited with her family, the Yezidi House in Syria said this week.

Shivan was born in the village of Tal Qasab in Shingal and was one of the women ISIS kidnapped and forced into Syria.

The terrorist group moved her around Syria, the Yezidi House said. “She suffered from all kinds of persecution, until she was able to contact her family and explain her situation and her desire to come home,” the group said in a statement on Monday.

ISIS’s emergence and genocide of Iraq’s Yezidi majority led to the displacement of thousands of the community from Sinjar after August 2014 and the killing of scores more.

According to the Yezidi Rescue Office, affiliated with the Kurdistan Region’s Presidency, more than 2,800 Yezidis of the 6,417 kidnapped by ISIS remain missing.

In early January, two Yezidi survivors, Assimah Jassem Khedr and Najla Saeed Ismail, were found by local authorities in Syria.

Khedr was living in the countryside of Deir al-Zor with pro-ISIS families after being smuggled out of the notorious al-Hol camp.

Yezidi leadership have appealed to Western diplomats, asking the international community to do more to rescue the hundreds of Yezidi women and children who are still missing.