Yazidi woman kidnapped at 11 and held hostage in Gaza by Isis militant for a decade finally rescued

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.

The rescue of Fawzia Amin Sido, who was 11-years-old when she was abducted from her home in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region in August 2014 following an Isis attack on the religious minority, involved a secret, intricate, and multi-state operation.

The terror group killed around 10,000 Yazidi people, whose faith draws from Zoroastrianism, and are predominantly based in Iraq and Syria. The attack also led to the kidnapping and exploitation of thousands of Yazidi women, who were coerced into sex slavery.

Following the abduction, Ms Sido was held captive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip for several years, subjected to years of sexual and physical abuse by her Palestinian Isis husband.

A heart-wrenching video posted by Steve Maman, a Canadian businessman dubbed "the Jewish Schindler" for his efforts to free Yazidis, captured the moment Ms Sido reunited with her mother and family in Sinjar in northwest Iraq.

"I promised Fawzia I’d bring her back to her mother in Sinjar," Mr Maman wrote. "To her, it seemed impossible, but not to me; my only enemy was time."

David Saranga, Israel’s digital diplomacy bureau director, announced Ms Sido’s rescue by Israeli security forces, while the Israel Defence Forces revealed a joint operation with the US Embassy and Jordanian authorities.

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that US aided in getting her out of Gaza and back to her familly in Iraq after being contacted by the Iraqi government for help.

“The circumstances of this case are really, really hard to describe,” Mr Miller told reporters. “This is a now young woman who, 10 years ago, when she was an 11-year-old girl, was kidnapped by Isis in Iraq, sold and forced to marry a Hamas fighter in Gaza and moved to Gaza against her will,” he said.

She faced relentless physical and sexual abuse, and her family received scarce updates on her plight, reported Jerusalem Post.

Ms Sido became a teenage mother, giving birth to two children. Her husband’s subsequent death brought no respite. She was coerced into joining his family in Gaza, embarking on a perilous four-year journey through Turkey and Egypt.

Ms Sido and her children finally arrived in the Gaza Strip around 2020, only to find themselves trapped in a cycle of exploitation and mistreatment.

Mr Maman revealed that Ms Sido escaped her captor’s family in late 2023 after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike. She sought refuge in a nearby safe house but waited a month for permission to leave Gaza.

Subsequently, the Iraqi government contacted the US informing that she was alive, and wanted to come home to her family, Mr Miller told the reporters. “The government of Iraq asked us to do whatever we could to get her out of Gaza and get her home. So over the past few weeks, we worked with a number of our partners in the region to get her out of Gaza.”

While the Iraq’s foreign ministry credited Ms Sido’s freedom to "joint efforts" with the National Intelligence Service, US embassies, and Jordanian authorities, spanning four months, it however, did not mention the involvement of Israeli authorities. “The girl was handed over to her family this evening after returning to Iraq,” the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

The IDF confirmed Ms Sido’s secret rescue through the Kerem Shalom Crossing, followed by her journey through Israel and Jordan back to Iraq.

Isis once controlled 88,000sqkm of territory, impacting nearly eight million people across eastern Iraq and western Syria. In August 2014, the group launched an attack on Iraq’s Sinjar region, the ancestral home of the Yazidi minority, rounding up the locals. It separated men and boys over 14 from women and girls and killed them.

The women were taken as "spoils of war" and sold into sexual slavery, with some even being given as "gifts" to Isis members.

It’s estimated that over 3,000 Yazidis lost their lives, while 6,000 others were taken captive. Over 2,600 Yazidis remain missing till date.

The UN has condemned these actions as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.