Yazidi woman captured by ISIS rescued from Gaza after being held hostage for more than a decade

(CNN)- A 21-year-old Yazidi woman has been rescued in Gaza, where she was held captive by Hamas for years after being trafficked by ISIS.

Fawzia Amin Sidou was freed this week in a coordinated operation between Israel, the United States and other international actors, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Thursday.

Fawzia told CNN that she has returned to Iraq after years in captivity.

The woman said she was abducted by ISIS as a child in August 2014, when the group captured the city of Sinjar in the Nineveh province of northern Iraq, where it killed Yazidi men and boys and committed sexual violence and abuse against them. There were incidents of rape and other crimes against women and girls.

Over the next few years, Fauzia was trafficked to several countries.

“Before we were trafficked to Idlib in 2019, we were in al-Hol camp (in Syria), and from there we went to Turkey. In 2020, they prepared a passport for me in Turkiye so that I could fly from Istanbul to Hurghada (Egypt) and then to Gaza,” he announced.

He told CNN he spent a year in Rafah, southern Gaza, where life was “unbearable”.

“Hamas continuously harassed me because of my Yazidi origins and contact with my family, even formatting my phone (removing its contents) during their investigation. After a year, they took me to a safe house.”

When war broke out between Israel and Hamas in 2023, he was repeatedly transferred, until October 1, when he said an NGO rescued him.

The IDF said her captor died, “possibly during IDF attacks in Gaza”, causing her to flee to a hideout, where she was rescued and taken to the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

When Fawzia spoke to CNN about her ordeal, she did not mention any attacks, except to say that she was rescued by an NGO in Rafah whose name she could not remember.

“From there, American officials picked me up and helped me return to Baghdad,” he announced.

Hamas said in a statement that the IDF was “promoting a false story and a fabricated story about the Yazidi girl living in Gaza, and narrating fabricated facts that do not support the truth.”

He said the “Yazidi woman married a young Palestinian” who was fighting “with opposition forces” in Syria before he was killed.

Hamas alleged that she “traveled to Turkey, Egypt and Gaza with her mother of her own free will” before marrying her husband’s brother. After he was killed, the Palestinian government “provided him a private room in one of the government facilities in southern Gaza” at his request.

Hamas said the IDF “did not release her” and that “the woman contacted her family, who contacted the Jordanian government, which coordinated with the IDF to evacuate her through the “Kerem Shalom border crossing”. , where a Yazidi woman crossed the border from a government facility designated for her with the information of her husband’s family and the Palestinian government.

CNN has contacted Jordanian officials for comment.

Fawzia was one of thousands of Yazidi women who were abducted by ISIS fighters in August 2014 during an attack on the Iraqi district of Sinjar, the Yazidis’ hometown.

Fawzia’s lawyer, Zemfira Dlovani, told CNN on Friday that between 2,300 and 2,500 Yazidi women and children are currently missing, but efforts are ongoing to locate the missing.

Dlovany would not share details about his actions, but says he hopes to rescue more missing Yazidis.

“We are not going to stop until the last person is saved,” said Dlovany, who is also a Yazidi. Dlovany said he worked on Fawzia’s case for months until he was able to free her from Gaza with the help of Israeli authorities.

He said that a person who knew Fauzia had contacted him months earlier for help, “and since then I have never stopped working on the case.”

He said, “During this time I was in contact only with Israeli officials.” The lawyer said that after Fauzia’s rescue, he hopes that more Yazidi women will contact him and ask for help.

Israel released a video in which she was seen reunited with her relatives, who enthusiastically embraced her.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said he was freed after more than four months of efforts by Iraqi government agencies in cooperation with American and Jordanian authorities. The ministry did not say where he was rescued and did not mention Israel.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller confirmed that the United States helped evacuate Fawzia from Gaza. He reiterated Israel’s version, saying that “the recent death of his captor in Gaza allowed him to escape.”

“We were contacted by the Iraqi government, who were informed of the fact that she had fled, that she was alive and that she wanted to return home to her family. And the Iraqi government asked us to do everything possible to get him out of Gaza and bring him home. “So in recent weeks we’ve worked with many of our partners in the region to get this out,” Miller said at a news conference Thursday.