By Timour Azhari
BEIRUT (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 an operation led by the United States and involving Jordan and the Baghdad government, Iraqi and U.S. officials said.
The woman is a member of the ancient Yazidi religious minority mostly found in Iraq and Syria which saw more than 5,000 members killed and thousands more kidnapped in a 2014 campaign that the U.N. has said constituted genocide.
She was freed after more than four months of efforts that involved several attempts that failed to due to the difficult security situation resulting from Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Silwan Sinjaree, chief of staff of Iraq’s foreign minister, told Reuters.
Officials did not provide details of how she was eventually freed, and Jordanian and U.S. embassy officials in Baghdad did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters could not reach the woman directly for comment.
A State Department spokesperson said the United States on Oct. 1 “helped to safely evacuate from Gaza a young Yezidi woman to be reunited with her family in Iraq.”
The spokesperson said she was kidnapped from her home in Iraq aged 11 and sold and trafficked to Gaza. Her captor was recently killed, allowing her to escape and seek repatriation, the spokesperson said.
Sinjaree said she was in good physical condition but was traumatized by her time in captivity and by the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. She had since been reunited with family in northern Iraq, he added.
More than 6,000 Yazidis were captured by Islamic State militants from native Sinjar region in Iraq in 2014, with many sold into sexual slavery or trained as child soldiers and taken across borders, including to Turkey and Syria.
Over the years, more than 3,500 have been rescued or freed, according to Iraqi authorities, with some 2,600 still missing.
Many are feared dead but Yazidi activists say they believe hundreds are still alive.
