Yazidi woman rescued from Gaza after decade in captivity

Zahra Fatima
BBC News

A Yazidi woman who was kidnapped aged 11 in Iraq by the Islamic State group and subsequently taken to Gaza has been rescued after more than a decade in captivity there, officials from Israel, the US and Iraq said.

The Yazidis are a religious minority who mostly live in Iraq and Syria. In 2014 the Islamic State group overran the Yazidi community in Sinjar in northern Iraq, massacring thousands of men, and enslaving girls and women.

The Israeli military said the now 21-year-old's captor in Gaza had been killed during the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas, probably as a result of an air strike.

The woman, identified as Fawzia Amin Sido, then fled to another place in Gaza.

The Israeli military said Ms Sido was eventually freed during a "complex operation coordinated between Israel, the United States, and other international actors" and taken to Iraq via Israel and Jordan.

Iraqi foreign ministry official Silwan Sinjaree told Reuters that several earlier attempts to rescue her over the course of about four months failed because of the security situation in Gaza.

Mr Sinjaree said Ms Sido was in good physical condition, but had been traumatised by her time in captivity and by the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Video shared by Canadian philanthropist Steve Maman showed Ms Sido reuniting with her family in Iraq.

Posting on X, Mr Maman said: "I made a promise to Fawzia the Yazidi who was hostage of Hamas in Gaza that I would bring her back home to her mother in Sinjar.

"To her it seemed surreal and impossible but not to me, my only enemy was time. Our team reunited her moments ago with her mother and family in Sinjar."

The Islamic State group once controlled 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) of territory stretching from eastern Iraq to western Syria and imposed its brutal rule on almost eight million people.

In August 2014, IS militants swept through Iraq's north-western Sinjar region, which is the homeland of the Yazidi religious minority.

In numerous Yazidi villages, the population was rounded up. Men and boys over the age of 14 were separated from women and girls. The men were then led away and shot, while the women were abducted as the "spoils of war".

Some of the Yazidi girls and women who later escaped from captivity described being openly sold or handed over into sexual slavery as "gifts" to IS members.

The Islamic State group is believed to have killed more than 3,000 Yazidis and captured 6,000 others in total.

The UN said IS committed genocide as well as multiple crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Yazidis.

Iraqi authorities say more than 3,500 members of the community have been rescued or freed and about 2,600 people remain missing.

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