Humanitarian

More than 2,000 Yazidis remain under ISIS control

In 2014, ISIS attacked the Sinjar district and kidnapped 6,417 Yazidis, including more than 2,000 children.

Displaced Yazidi women sit in their tent at the Chamishko camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) in the city of Zakho in the north of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on May 5, 2022. (Photo: Safin Hamed/AFP)
Displaced Yazidi women sit in their tent at the Chamishko camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) in the city of Zakho in the north of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on May 5, 2022. (Photo: Safin Hamed/AFP)
Kurdistan Yazidi ISIS northeastern Syria The Kidnapped Yazidi Rescue Offic

Erbil (Kurdistan 24) – The process of rescuing Yazidi children who were abducted by the Islamic State (ISIS) faces great challenges. Only seven children have been rescued this year.

A Yazidi mother tells Kurdsitan24 that "my son was four years old when they kidnapped him. He was so small that he didn’t know anything. We looked for him a lot in Syria but couldn’t find any trace of him."

She pleads for help and calls on "the Kurdistan Regional Government and the federal government to return her kidnapped child."

The picture of Ibrahim, a Yazidi child, who was abducted by ISIS, Dec. 17, 2022. (Photo: Kurdistan 24)
The picture of Ibrahim, a Yazidi child, who was abducted by ISIS, Dec. 17, 2022. (Photo: Kurdistan 24)

 

In 2014, ISIS attacked the Sinjar district and kidnapped 6,417 Yazidis, including more than 2,000 children. 

While the process of rescuing the Yazidi abductees is ongoing, more than 2,000 kidnapped Yazidis children remain under ISIS’s control.

The Kidnapped Yazidi Rescue Office claims that they "face many obstacles in saving the children, especially in northeastern Syria (Rojava)."

"Eight years after the Yazidi kidnappings, we are facing great difficulties in identifying the young children who were taken by ISIS," explains Hussein Alqaidi, the head of Kidnapped Yazidi Rescue Office.

The Yazidi children who have been rescued are experiencing mental disorders and behavioral problems.  Most of them have forgotten their native language and exhibit violent tendencies, causing many family issues.