Hopefully, when ISIS is defeated, all the Yazidi prisoners will be able to return homes.
How this Yazidi man is saving IS captives
It had been the hundredth time he heard the ringtone that day. The middle-aged man, who wears rectangular glasses and a black mustache, immediately answered his phone. A rescue operation is in the making.
Summary⎙ Print Yazidi families in Iraq are paying thousands of dollars to smugglers who rescue their members from the Islamic State’s grip.
Author Wilson FachePosted June 9, 2016
“Even the Islamic State [IS] knows my phone number now,” Hassan said as he hung up his mobile. “They don’t like me very much,” he added. And with good reason: His job is to free Yazidis kidnapped by IS.
Hassan, who lives in Iraqi Kurdistan, defines himself as a former businessman with contacts across Syria who now coordinates a network of two dozen smugglers who used to traffic cigarettes. But smuggling humans out of IS-held territories proved to be way more lucrative. The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq and Yazidi families pay smugglers thousands of dollars to rescue those who were abducted.
These men are also very much aware they are taking enormous risks. Twelve of his contacts were beheaded, according to Hassan. Others were thrown in jail.
Despite the threats, he said there is no turning back, especially since more than 30 of his family members are still held prisoner. “I once was standing in a mass grave where some of my relatives had been buried. I was looking at what was left of my family — skeletons — when suddenly I received a phone call from a woman in Syria seeking help. That’s when I decided to never give up,” Hassan said. “That woman and her kids were more important than bones.”
The Yazidi community, which draws some of its beliefs in pre-Islamic religions of ancient Persia, considers Tawusi Melek, the "Peacock Angel," as a central figure of their faith, while IS sees him as an equivalent of Satan. Considered to be “devil worshippers” and idolaters, hundreds of Yazidis were killed and possibly buried in up to 35 mass graves, while thousands were enslaved and over 400,000 had to flee when IS made an unexpected push in Sinjar in the summer of 2014. The terror campaign against Yazidis could be a “genocide,” according to a UN report from March 19, 2015.
The KRG Office of Kidnapping Affairs told Al-Monitor that 2,578 abducted Yazidis returned home from October 2014 to date and more than 1,000 of them had been rescued directly by their office, which works with a network of smugglers and middlemen, including Hassan. More than 3,000 Yazidis remain captive, mostly in or around Mosul, Tal Afar and Raqqa, IS’ de facto capital in Syria.
Read more:
How this Yazidi man is saving IS captives
How this Yazidi man is saving IS captives
It had been the hundredth time he heard the ringtone that day. The middle-aged man, who wears rectangular glasses and a black mustache, immediately answered his phone. A rescue operation is in the making.
Summary⎙ Print Yazidi families in Iraq are paying thousands of dollars to smugglers who rescue their members from the Islamic State’s grip.
Author Wilson FachePosted June 9, 2016
“Even the Islamic State [IS] knows my phone number now,” Hassan said as he hung up his mobile. “They don’t like me very much,” he added. And with good reason: His job is to free Yazidis kidnapped by IS.
Hassan, who lives in Iraqi Kurdistan, defines himself as a former businessman with contacts across Syria who now coordinates a network of two dozen smugglers who used to traffic cigarettes. But smuggling humans out of IS-held territories proved to be way more lucrative. The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq and Yazidi families pay smugglers thousands of dollars to rescue those who were abducted.
These men are also very much aware they are taking enormous risks. Twelve of his contacts were beheaded, according to Hassan. Others were thrown in jail.
Despite the threats, he said there is no turning back, especially since more than 30 of his family members are still held prisoner. “I once was standing in a mass grave where some of my relatives had been buried. I was looking at what was left of my family — skeletons — when suddenly I received a phone call from a woman in Syria seeking help. That’s when I decided to never give up,” Hassan said. “That woman and her kids were more important than bones.”
The Yazidi community, which draws some of its beliefs in pre-Islamic religions of ancient Persia, considers Tawusi Melek, the "Peacock Angel," as a central figure of their faith, while IS sees him as an equivalent of Satan. Considered to be “devil worshippers” and idolaters, hundreds of Yazidis were killed and possibly buried in up to 35 mass graves, while thousands were enslaved and over 400,000 had to flee when IS made an unexpected push in Sinjar in the summer of 2014. The terror campaign against Yazidis could be a “genocide,” according to a UN report from March 19, 2015.
The KRG Office of Kidnapping Affairs told Al-Monitor that 2,578 abducted Yazidis returned home from October 2014 to date and more than 1,000 of them had been rescued directly by their office, which works with a network of smugglers and middlemen, including Hassan. More than 3,000 Yazidis remain captive, mostly in or around Mosul, Tal Afar and Raqqa, IS’ de facto capital in Syria.
Read more:
How this Yazidi man is saving IS captives
