Underground ISIS prison for Yazidis found south of Hasaka

Yesterday Kurdish-led forces, known as Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), discovered an underground prison made by ISIS used for detaining Yazidi women and children kidnapped from Iraq.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (K24) – On Tuesday, December 22, Kurdish-led forces, known as Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), discovered an underground prison made by ISIS used for detaining Yazidi women and children kidnapped from Iraq.

A K24 reporter had been to the location of the prison yesterday in the town of Al-Hawl, which was liberated by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) last month. Al-Hawl has a population of 4,000 people located in the south of Hasaka, a city in northeast Syria.

“The underground prison contains five small square rooms (1.5 x 1.5 meters), and some rags and clothes of women and children have been left in the rooms,” officials of the Syrian Democratic Forces in Al-Hawl told a K24 reporter.

“On the walls of the rooms, many drawings and scribbles were made by children, which is conclusive evidence that a number of children were kept in this prison,” the K24 reporter explained.

video report on K24 displayed the drawings on the walls containing natural elements and landscapes of the Kurdish Yazidi culture, such as goats, sheep, horses, trees, rivers, mountains and the sun in a bigger size than the other elements.

The video also showed other drawings on the walls containing rotas on daily and weekly housewife duties, which indicates the existence of many women in the prison held by ISIS.

Other drawings also showed personal memories and thoughts in the prison on the daily lives of the women and children. Tiny details, including cooking, cleaning, tidying, calendars of the days passed in the prison, and talking about their suffering, were scribbled on the walls as well.

On November 13, Al-Hawl was liberated by Syrian Democratic Forces, which was considered the SDF's first strategic success.

The control of Al-Hawl by Kurdish-led SDF in Syria coincided with the liberation of Shingal (Sinjar) by Peshmerga forces in the Kurdistan Region.