AANES returns former Yezidi ISIS captive to family
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – On Thursday, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) returned a Yezidi child and former ISIS captive to a family member from Sinjar (Shengal) region in northern Iraq, a week after his liberation from Hawl Camp in the countryside of Hasakah.
16-year-old child Erdewan was handed over to his family in cooperation between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Yezidi Women’s Aid Network (Waqf) and the Yezidi House.
Erdewan was captured by ISIS in August 2014, when the group attacked Shengal, the homeland of the Yezidi ethnoreligious minority, killing thousands, abducting tens of thousands, and displacing nearly half a million.
With the start of the Baghouz campaign in early 2019, during which the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) liberated the area, many ISIS members and their captives, including Erdewan, began to flee.
Last Tuesday, the Yezidi House in northeast Syria’s Jazira region followed up on a source which told them that there was a missing Yezidi child living in Syria’s infamous Hawl Camp, which houses Iraqi refugees, Syrian IDPs, and thousands of wives and children of ISIS members.
Soon after Erdewan’s father obtained information that his now-teenage son was alive and in Hawl Camp, he coordinated with the Internal Security Forces (Asayish) in the camp, as well as the Yezidi House, to rescue him.
Head of the Yezidi House in the Jazira region Farouq Tozo said that they rescued the child from Hawl Camp, where he stayed hidden for nearly two and a half years after fleeing ISIS during the Baghouz campaign.
“Over 400 Yezidis rescued from ISIS by Yezidi House encounter severe difficulties in mentally recovering from their ordeal and re-entering society,” he added, though he told North Press that Erdewan seemed “aware” and intelligent despite his long captivity.