Over 600 Shia Turkmen women, children under IS captivity

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – More than 600 Shia Turkmen women and children remain under the control of the Islamic State (IS), an Iraqi official said on Friday.

Masrour Aswad, a member of the High Commission of Human Rights in Iraq, told Kurdistan24 that the federal government of Iraq and other organizations are not paying enough attention to free these hostages.

“We have acquired information that [IS] has jailed some of them in a military base in Mosul, but the federal government of Iraq and organizations are silent,” Aswad said.

The women in captivity are often used as sex slaves and the children trained for suicide attacks.

He mentioned that they had met with some of the women rescued from IS, and they revealed some sensitive information about the whereabouts of many prisoned women in IS-controlled territories.

“They have revealed information about the hostages and asked us to conceal their names and profile,” Aswad added.

Additionally, he stated only 11 of the Shia Turkmen hostages had been rescued from the jihadist group so far.

Hassan Toran, the Deputy Head of Turkmen Front and a member of the parliament of Iraq, criticized the Baghdad government and international organizations for not making enough efforts to rescue the hostages.

“Before, we had information about those hostages, and we knew that they were alive,” Toran told Kurdistan24.

“But now all our connections are lost, and nobody knows what happened to them,” the Deputy Head continued.

He believes that the government of Iraq must find a solution regarding the hostages especially after they are rescued.

In June 2014, IS took control of Mosul and large swaths of territories in the north of Iraq.

The group enslaved thousands of Kurdish Ezidi women and sold them as sex slaves in markets under their control.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany
(Additional reporting by Soran Kamaran)