ICC Note:
Three Yazidi girls have been rescued from ISIS in Syria, according to the KRG office for Yezidi Abductees’ Affairs. The girls are from villages just west of Mosul, and had been in captivity for three years. The youngest girl rescued is just 15 years old. ISIS continues to hold hundreds of girls captive, and despite their battlefield retreat the militants continue their pursuit of a slave trade that targets religious minorities. Survivors of ISIS’s human trafficking crimes are in great need of specialized care, and the families whose loved ones remain missing often battle depression.  Â
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11/27/2017 Syria (Basnews) –    The head of KRG office for Yezidi Abductees’ Affairs announced on Saturday the release of three Yezidi girls from the grip of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria after spending three years in captivity.
“We managed on Friday to rescue three girls, named Karima, Widad, and Thuraya, from the grip of IS terrorist organization in Syria,” Hussein Qaidi, the head of the office told Al Ghad Press.
“The three girls are from the villages of Kocho and Hardan in Sinjar district, west of Mosul, and are between 15 and 27 years old,” he said.
He pointed out that the liberation process of those girls was carried out through the office and the teams operating in Syria and no military force was involved.
“There are many Yezidi survivors who have a visa to travel to Europe for treatment, but because of the air embargo imposed by the federal government on Kurdistan Region, they can not travel at the moment,” he said.
He stressed that efforts to free the remaining Yezidi abductees are still ongoing by the KRG office and other parties.
In August 2014, the IS militants invaded Sinjar, the Yezidis’ hometown in Nineveh Plain, where they killed and abducted thousands of men, women, and children.
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