QAZLAJOKH, Syria: Syrian Kurds on Saturday repatriated 25 women and children from Iraq’s Yazidi minority after freeing them during the final push against Daesh, a local official said.
The US-backed fighters say they rescued some 300 Yazidi women and children during the fight to take the militants’ last scrap of territory in eastern Syria.
“Today, we will hand over 25 people — 10 women and 15 children — to the Yazidi council in Sinjar,” said Ziyad Rustam, an official with the Kurdish-run group Yazidi House, which reunites rescued Yazidi children with surviving relatives.
“They will be sent to their families,” he told AFP.
At the Yazidi House headquarters in a village near the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, women wearing colorful robes collected children scampering around the compound before boarding busses bound for Sinjar, the Yazidi heartland in Iraq.
“The fate of my three sisters remains unknown... I don’t know anything about them,” said 17-year-old Jamila Haidar.
“I hope we will be reunited soon.”
Iraq’s Yazidis are a symbol of the suffering caused by Daesh during its rein over vast swathes of Syria and Iraq.
The militants stormed through Iraq’s northwest in 2014 slaughtering thousands of men and boys and abducting women and girls to be abused as sex slaves.
But they have since lost all of the once-sprawling cross-border “caliphate” to multiple offensive.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month announced the defeat of the Daesh proto-state after tens of thousands of people streamed out of the militants’ last patch of territory, around the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border.
Rustam said SDF had in total liberated 850 Yazidi women and children during its battles against Daesh since 2015.
But 3,040 Yazidis are still missing, he said, adding that the search for them was ongoing.
Rustam said the militants had “sold many of them to people inside Syria, in places like Idlib,” most of which is held by a former Al-Qaeda affiliate.
Some of the Yazidis extracted from Daesh’s last sliver of territory are being held at the Kurdish-run Al-Hol camp, which also houses militant family members.
Syria Kurds return 25 Yazidis freed from IS to Iraq
Syria Kurds return 25 Yazidis freed from IS to Iraq
Syrian authorities arrest 3 members of pro-Assad armed group in Hama
- The group is accused of engaging in incitement against the state to undermine security and stability
- 30 people targeted by separate operation in Tartus, including what security forces describe as remnants of the Assad regime, instigators and outlaws
LONDON: Syrian authorities in Hama have arrested three people accused of involvement in an armed group linked to remnants of the deposed regime of the former president, Bashar Assad.
The Internal Security Command in Al-Ghab, central Syria, said on Wednesday that the group had engaged in incitement against the state with the aim of undermining security and stability.
Brig. Gen. Mulham Al-Shantout, commander of internal security in Hama, said the operation that led to the arrests was carried out in coordination with counterterrorism authorities.
About 30 people were targeted as part of a separate operation in Tartus, the Internal Security Command said, including what it described as remnants of the Assad regime, instigators and outlaws. One individual was killed during armed clashes with members of the security forces, three of whom were injured, and a cache of weapons and ammunition was seized in the coastal city.
Authorities said they remain strongly committed to protecting citizens, maintaining civil peace and enforcing the law against anyone who jeopardizes the security and stability of the country, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported.
