BEIRUT, Oct 3 (Reuters) – A 21-year-old woman kidnapped by Islamic State militants in Iraq more than a decade ago was freed from Gaza this week in a U.S.-led operation, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. .
Officials said Israel, Jordan and Iraq were also involved in the operation.
The woman was a member of the ancient Yazidi religious minority, primarily in Iraq and Syria, who killed more than 5,000 people and kidnapped thousands more in a 2014 operation that the United Nations calls a genocide. claimed to be the case.
Shirwan Sinjari, the Iraqi foreign minister’s chief of staff, told Reuters the men were freed after more than four months of efforts during which several attempts failed due to the difficult security situation caused by Israeli military offensives in the Gaza Strip. Ta.
She turned out to be Fauzia Sydow. Reuters was unable to contact the woman directly for comment.
Iraqi authorities had been in contact with the woman for several months and passed the information on to U.S. authorities, who arranged for her to leave Gaza with Israeli assistance, according to people familiar with the matter.
Authorities have not provided details about how exactly she was eventually released, and Jordanian and U.S. embassy officials in Baghdad did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Fawzia, a Yazidi girl who was kidnapped from Iraq by ISIS and brought to Gaza at the age of 11, has finally been rescued by Israeli security forces,” David Saranga, director of digital diplomacy at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told X. Posted. ”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
A State Department spokesperson said on October 1 that the United States “assisted the safe evacuation of a young Yazidi woman from Gaza so she could be reunited with her family in Iraq.”
The spokesperson said she was kidnapped from her home in Iraq at the age of 11 and sold to Gaza where she was trafficked. Her captor was recently killed, allowing her to escape and seek repatriation, the spokesperson said.
Sinjali said he was feeling well but was still traumatized by his time as a prisoner of war and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. She was later reunited with her family in northern Iraq, he added.
In 2014, more than 6,000 Yazidis were captured by Islamic State militants in Iraq’s Sinjar region, many of them sold as sex slaves or trained as child soldiers, and taken across borders to countries such as Turkey and Syria. Ta.
According to Iraqi authorities, more than 3,500 people have been rescued or released over the years, and about 2,600 remain missing.
Many are feared dead, but Yazidi activists said they believed hundreds were still alive.
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Report by Timur Azhari. Editing: Angus McSwan
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