The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have rescued Diyar Ali Raffo, a young Yazidi man forcibly conscripted into ISIS after being kidnapped during the 2014 terrorist attack on Sinjar (Şengal), the Yazidi homeland in northern Iraq.
SDF’s military operations teams discovered Raffo in Manbij (Minbic) on 23 November, where an ISIS cell was attempting to smuggle him to Turkish-occupied areas. Raffo had sustained injuries during an ISIS hideout bombing before his rescue.
“ISIS gathered all the men and imprisoned them in the school. Women, children and the remaining men were confined to the second floor. The men were then taken to an unknown location, and their fate remains uncertain,” Raffo said.
Raffo, who was 10 years old when kidnapped, described his separation from family members in Tal Afar. “I was placed in a school with other children, while my family was detained in a prison near Zakho,” he explained.
The young man revealed ISIS’s systematic indoctrination of kidnapped children. “ISIS subjected us to their religious indoctrination and forced military training. Those aged 14 and older were compelled to join their ranks,” he said.
Raffo, originally from the village of Kocho in Sinjar, now hopes to reunite with his family. The whereabouts of his mother, two brothers, and two sisters remain unknown, while his eldest sister died age 16.
