A Yazidi girl was rescued from ISIS by Kurdish-led security forces on Saturday during the second phase of the Humanity and Security campaign in the al-Hol refugee camp in northern Syria, Hawar News reported.
Wafa Abbas, 18, was abducted by ISIS militants in 2014 when she was nine, along with her hearing impaired sister who was 13 years old at the time, Wafa said.
She was playing with her friends when ISIS militants surrounded her home village of Kocho in the Sinjar district. The ISIS militants told the sheikh of the Kocho clan that they had to surrender within three days or they would seize the village by force.
When the Sheikh refused to surrender, ISIS stormed the village and began separating the old people, children, girls and young boys into separate groups, Wafa explained.
She went on to say that she and her sister plus 70 more girls were separated from their families and brought to the slave market in Mosul to be sold. In the middle of the night, an ISIS man took Wafa’s sister, and she has never been heard of again.
At only nine years old, Wafa was sold seven times. After being repeatedly raped by several ISIS militants, she was forced to abort the ensuing pregnancy. Without the right to practise her language, culture or religion, Wafa was forced to convert to Islam. Wafa explains that after a transfer to Syria she was forcibly married to a man named Ahmed, as his third wife.
Wafa unsuccessfully attempted escape many times.
On Thursday 25 Aug, the Internal Security Forces, in cooperation with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), launched a security campaign targeting ISIS sleeper cells in the al-Hol refugee camp.
Camp al-Hol is home to tens of thousands of ISIS detainees and internally displaced families. Under SDF’s control, the overcrowded facility is known as a dangerous place where ISIS detainees regroup and run sleeper cells.
Many Yazidi women and children are believed to be among the residents of the notorious camp, but are unable to reveal their true identities because of fear as a result of death threats from ISIS militants in the camp.
