Via EKurd — About 500 Yazidi women have been rescued from the so-called Islamic State (ISIS). There are an estimated 3,000 Kurdish Yazidi women still in captivity, according to the the Head of the Women’s Rights Defense Committee in the Kurdistan Regional Government‘s parliament.
Speaking to NRT’s ‘Good Morning Kurdistan’ show on Sunday, Evar Ibrahim said 157 women of the 500 rescued are in bad psychological and physical condition and are receiving treatment in Duhok.
Besieged on Mount Sinjar
IS militants overran the predominantly Kurdish district of Sinjar, also known as Shingal (124 km west of Mosul) on August 3, 2014, forcing thousands of Kurdish and Yazidi families to flee to Mount Sinjar. Hundreds more were captured, enslaved, or killed by the militants.
“When Daesh entered Sinjar, they committed many crimes like beheading men and making women hostages in Kojo village,” Ibrahim said, using an Arabic acronym for IS. She added, “We as the committee asked the Iraqi Defense Ministry, Peshmerga Ministry and Interior Ministry of the Kurdistan Region to try to rescue the Yazidi women soon.”
Since August, the Kurds and Yazidis on Mount Sinjar have been trapped, suffering from lack of water and food, killings and abductions, live burials, and countless acts of rape, kidnapping and enslavement.
Yazidi Women Subject to Sexual Slavery
Hundreds and possibly thousands of Kurdish Yazidi women and girls have been forced to marry or been sold into sexual slavery by the IS jihadists, according to Amnesty International. Some of the women captives are believed to have been sold in Tal Afar, Iraq and in the IS-stronghold of Raqqa in Syria. According to Ibrahim, “the cheapest price of the sold women was $10 and the most expensive was $100.”
ISIS retains its control on most parts of the Sinjar region, and the Kurdish Regional Government estimates that 3,000 Yazidi women are still held by the militant organization.
[Read more at EKurd]
