Yazidi girl held by ISIS for 11 years to reunite with family

SHIGUR (SINJAR), Beth Nahrin — After locating her among militants of the Islamic State (ISIS), the Women’s Protection Units have transferred a young Yazidi girl (20) to the Shingal Resistance Units in Iraq. The young girl will be reunited with her family in Shigur. 

The young girl was kidnapped when she was 9 years old from the Khansour complex in Sinjar, along with dozens of her relatives, during the ISIS invasion of Shigur in August 2014. She spent more than eleven years in captivity, during which she was subjected to grave violations. 

The Yazidis, an ethno-religious indigenous people primarily residing in the Shigur region of Beth Nahrin, northern Iraq, suffered a brutal campaign of genocide at the hands of ISIS beginning in 2014. Thousands were killed, and many women and children were subjected to abduction and enslavement. Despite the passage of time, the Yazidi people continue to grapple with the aftermath, including the search for missing persons and the preservation of mass grave sites.