TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Syrian Kurds repatriated 25 women and children from Iraq’s Izadi group after freeing them during the final push against Daesh, a local official said.
The Syrian Kurdish fighters say they rescued some 300 Izadi women and children during the fight to take the militants’ last scrap of territory in eastern Syria.
“Today, we will hand over 25 people – 10 women and 15 children – to the Yazidi council in Sinjar,” said Ziyad Rustam, an official with the Kurdish-run group Izadi House, which reunites rescued Izadi children with surviving relatives.
“They will be sent to their families,” he told AFP.
At the Izadi House headquarters, women wearing colorful robes collected children scampering around the compound before boarding buses bound for Sinjar, the Izadi heartland.
“The fate of my three sisters remains unknown… I don’t know anything about them,” said 17-year-old Jamila Haidar.
“I hope we will be reunited soon.”
Iraq’s Izadi are a symbol of the suffering caused by Daesh during its rein over vast swathes of Syria and Iraq.
The terror group, which was largely defeated in Iraq and Syria in late 2017, stormed through Iraq’s northwest in 2014 slaughtering thousands of men and boys and abducting women and girls to be abused as sex slaves.
Sinjar was recaptured in November 2015, during an operation by Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Izadi fighters.