A 21-year-old woman kidnapped by Islamic State fighters in Iraq in 2014 was freed from Gaza this week in a secret operation that involved Iraq, Israel, Jordan and the United States.
The Yazidis, whose faith is rooted in Zoroastrianism, mostly live in Iraq and Syria. They were targeted by ISIL in Iraq’s Sinjar district in a campaign that killed nearly 10,000 people in a matter of days and saw thousands of women kidnapped, raped or abused as sex slaves.
The woman was taken at the age of 11 and later trafficked into Gaza.
She was freed after more than four months of efforts that involved several attempts that failed due to the difficult security situation resulting from Israel’s war in Gaza, Silwan Sinjaree, chief of staff of Iraq’s foreign minister, told the Reuters news agency on Thursday.
The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs praised the cooperation between the US and Jordan.
“The girl was handed over to her family this evening after returning to Iraq,” the ministry said in a statement on Thursday, without making any mention of Gaza or Israel.
Iraq and Israel do not have any diplomatic ties.
Iraqi officials had been in contact with the woman for months and passed on her information to US officials, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
A State Department spokesperson said the US on Tuesday “helped to safely evacuate from Gaza a young Yazidi woman to be reunited with her family in Iraq”.
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