Dozen abducted Izadi women, children released in northern Iraq
Authorities in Iraq say security forces have managed to release a dozen women and children from the Izadi minority group, who had been abducted by Daesh terrorists when the Takfiris were in control of the northern province of Nineveh.
The media bureau of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command announced in a statement on Monday that government troops acted on intelligence reports, and were able to free six women and their six children.
The statement added that the Izadis were later escorted to safety in the Kurdish-populated town of Sinjar.
Daesh extremists had kidnapped them from an area near the strategic northern city of Mosul, located some 400 kilometers north of the capital Baghdad.
The Paris-based NGO International Federation for Human Rights said in a report on October 25 last year that foreign militants, including many of European origins, were responsible for atrocities and acts of brutality carried out by Daesh against Izadi Kurds.
Nadia Murad, an Iraqi Izadi human rights activist and one of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, confirmed the findings of the report.
Last August, an official at the Endowments and Religious Affairs Ministry of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government said more than 3,000 members of the Izadi minority group remained unaccounted for ever since Daesh overran their hometowns in northern Iraq in 2014.
“The fate of 3,102 Izadis remain[s] unknown since Daesh terrorists attacked our towns and cities in mid-2014,” Khairi Bozarni said at a conference devoted to the “Izadi Genocide” in the Kurdish capital city Erbil on August 15.
Bozarni added that more than 2,500 Izadi Kurds had lost their lives at the hands of Daesh, while another 6,000 – mostly women and children – had been abducted.
He noted that 66 places of worship for Izadis had also been desecrated or destroyed by the terror group.
“What’s more, more than 100,000 Izadis have fled [the] Kurdistan region and Iraq in general since the summer of 2014,” Bozarni said.
He went on to say that Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani had secured the release of more than 2,000 abducted Izadis.
Bozarni also called on the international community as well as the central government in Baghdad to determine the fate of missing Izadis as soon as possible.
Back in August 2014, Daesh terrorists overran Sinjar, killing, raping, and enslaving large numbers of Izadi Kurds.
The region was recaptured in November 2015, during an operation by Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Izadi fighters.
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