Speaking to Rudaw during a program aired on Monday, Hussein Qaidi, head of the Office, said, “We do not wish to disclose the names of all the countries where we have information about the presence of the kidnapped” Yazidis, but “Syria - specifically northeastern Syria [Rojava] - is at the top of the list.”
In June 2014, ISIS seized vast swaths of northern and western Iraq. Two months later, it launched a brutal assault on the Yazidis’ ancestral homeland of Shingal (Sinjar), killing between 5,000 and 10,000 Yazidi men and elderly women. The group also abducted approximately 6,000 to 7,000 women and girls, subjecting them to sexual slavery and human trafficking. Around 400,000 Yazidis were displaced, most of whom sought refuge in the Kurdistan Region.
Qaidi stated that many of the abductees are believed to be held in the notorious al-Hol camp in Rojava’s Hasaka province. As of April, the notorious camp housed 34,927 people, many of whom have suspected ISIS affiliations, according to data obtained by Rudaw English.
The camp is administered by the Kurdish-led Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), with security provided by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Rojava’s de facto army. However, Qaidi highlighted the limited coordination between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the SDF regarding rescue operations.
He also criticized the new leadership in Damascus, noting that it provides “no assistance in identifying the whereabouts of abducted Yazidis” or in “rescuing and returning” them.
Since its establishment, the Office for Rescuing Abducted Yazidis - affiliated with the office of Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani - has “succeeded in rescuing 3,590 Yazidis” from ISIS captivity, Qaidi said. However, he stressed that the crisis is far from over.
He recalled the harrowing case of one young Yazidi survivor who had been sold and enslaved by more than ten men, some two to seven times her age. “She faced sexual assault at such a young age that she didn’t even understand what was being done to her or what sexual assault meant,” he said. “This particular case still haunts me.”
On Monday, marking the 11th anniversary of the Yazidi genocide, President Barzani asserted the Kurdistan Region’s continued commitment to the cause of the Yazidi people, pledging that the Office will persist in its mission “as long as there remains even one Yazidi abductee still in captivity.”
Rebwar Ali contributed to this article.
