Yazidi survivor returns home after complex international rescue

21-year-old Fawzia Amin Sido, a young Yazidi who was abducted as a child by fighters of the Islamic State and forced into marriage with a Hamas member, has returned to her family after years in captivity. Her rescue required a complex international operation.

Fawzia Amin Sido was only 11 years old when she was kidnapped in August 2014 from her hometown in Iraqi Kurdistan. Following the Islamic State's attack on the area inhabited by the Yazidi minority, close to 10,000 people were killed, and thousands of women, including Sido, were forced into gendered slavery.

A 21-year-old Yazidi woman who was held captive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and subjected to years of abuse by an Isis militant she was forced to marry, was finally reunited with her family, reports "The Independent".

Sido was a victim of physical and sexual violence by her "husband" for ten years. She also became a mother of two children. Her situation seemed hopeless, but in 2023, she managed to escape after her husband was killed in an Israeli airstrike. Sido hid in a safe house, waiting for an opportunity to leave Gaza.

The rescue would not have been possible without an international operation. Iraqi authorities, informed of her plight, requested assistance from the American embassy. As reported by Matthew Miller, spokesman for the U.S. Department of State, Israeli security forces and Jordanian authorities also collaborated in the effort. As noted by the Independent, the operation was full of logistical challenges and risky decisions. It lasted four months and faced several setbacks.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Fawzia Sido and her children were rescued at the border between Israel and Gaza and were subsequently transported through Israel and Jordan to Iraq. Her return to Sinjar, her hometown in northwestern Iraq, was met with great emotion.

The UN recognised the 2014 attack on the Yazidis in the Sinjar region as genocide. Thousands of Yazidi women, like Fawzia Sido, endured unimaginable suffering related to captivity, killings, and forced slavery. Although Sido and some of these women were rescued, approximately 2,600 Yazidis remain missing.

Sido belongs to the Yazidi religious minority, mainly comprising Kurds living in the border areas of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Armenia, and Georgia.