The Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) and the Yazidi House in North and East Syria’s Jazira (Cizîre) canton, in coordination with Sinjar (Shengal) City Council and the Yazidi Women’s Resistance Units (YJŞ), have facilitated the return of Kovan Aidi Khourto, a Yazidi woman recently rescued from ISIS by the YPJ, to her family.
Khourto, from the village of Hardan in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq, was freed after a decade in ISIS captivity in the al-Hol camp. She was one of thousands of Yazidi women abducted during the Sinjar massacre in 2014.
The Yazidi House expressed its gratitude to the YPJ, the Asayish internal security forces and all those involved in the liberation.
Farhad Shami, head of the Media and Information Office of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), praised the bravery of the YPJ in rescuing Yazidi women from ISIS captivity.
The YPJ managed to free the woman during a joint operation with security forces from Syria’s Kurdish-led autonomous regions in the al-Hol camp on 4 February.
The operation, supported by the Global Coalition against ISIS, targeted active ISIS bases in al-Hol camp, home to more than 50,000 residents, mostly women and children.
The dire conditions in al-Hol camp, coupled with the continued threat of ISIS, have posed serious challenges to the Democratic Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria (DAANES) in countering extremism.