24/05/2021

Yezidi boy freed from ISIS captivity in Al-Hol Camp in North and East Syria

AL-HOL, Syria / SHENGAL, Iraq — Prominent Yezidi journalist in Iraq Miyasar al-Adani reported the freeing of 16-year-old Yezidi Ardwan Mohsen Khidir Dalki from inside Al-Hol Refugee Camp in North and East Syria.

Al-Adani stated that the boy was kidnapped with seven members of his family by the Islamic State (ISIS) from the village of Tal Banat, southeast of Shengal (Sinjar) in Nineveh Plains in Iraq. Ardwan was only nine years old when he was kidnapped.

Al-Adani also mentioned that two years ago, Ardwan’s younger sister was liberated from the city of Mosul. The fate of the five other members of the family are still unknown.

During its genocide of the Yezidi people of Shengal and the surrounding villages, about 6,400 people were kidnapped, the majority of them women and children. Only 3,500 of them have been freed, the fates of 2,900 remain unknown.

Al-Adani called on the international community to stand with Yezidi victims and their families, search for the kidnapped, free them, and reveal their fate as soon as possible.

According to the Yezidi House organization in North and East Syria, during the past year, they were able to locate dozens of abducted children and women among the families of ISIS members in Al-Hol Camp.

In March, local media outlet the Afrin Post reported the presence of Yezidi women previously kidnapped from Shengal in Iraq by ISIS in the Turkish-occupied city of Cafrin (Afrin) in northwestern Syria.

The Afrin Post reported that it had detected the presence of foreign and Syrian ISIS terrorists accompanied by four Yezidi women known to have been kidnapped from Shengal in 2014 in the areas controlled by Ahrar al-Sharqiya terrorists in Rajo and Jinderes in the Cafrin Region.

In January, a Yezidi woman managed to flee her captors in Busirah, east of Dayro Zcuro (Deir ez-Zor) in North and East Syria.

In August 2020, a 24-year-old Yezidi woman being held captive in the Turkish capital of Ankara was freed after her family paid a ransom for her release. The women, Zozan, was discovered to be in Turkey with her captor and his family who had reportedly been living in Turkey for several years.