Kidnapped boys flee Islamic State enclave in Deir Ezzor

Eleven Yazidi boys, kidnapped by Islamic State, manged to escape IS’s last enclave in Deir Ezzor and arrived to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Force-held areas on February 23, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. Footage, shared by Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) Press Office, shows the Yazidi boys sitting together eating.

The young man speaking at the 40-second mark in the footage says that he was abducted by Islamic State five years ago and that there are still Yazidi boys trapped in Baghuz. He adds that most of their mothers escaped, while their fathers were killed by Islamic State. They didn’t learn anything during the abduction and were always kept at home, he says.

The boy speaking Yazidi at 1:52 says that his name is Mazen, from Sinjar, also known as Shingal, in north Iraq. “Any bad thing happened to Sinjar?” the boy asked the reporter who answered him that everything is alright there. David Eubank, an ex-US Special Forces soldier who runs a humanitarian group in Deir Ezzor, can be seen with the boys at the end of the footage. Eubank says that he saw the suffering of the Yazidi people during the fighting in Sinjar and thanks SDF for freeing the boys.

Islamic State attacked the Yazidi religious minority in Sinjar region in 2014, killing and kidnapping thousands of civilians, including women and children. The United Nations said in a report on June 16, 2016 that Islamic State had committed genocide against the Yazidi population and subjected every Yazidi woman, child or man to the “most horrific of atrocities.”

Source: NT News