{"id":240026,"date":"2025-02-16T10:04:06","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T10:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/16\/volunteers-search-for-isis-kidnap-victims\/"},"modified":"2025-02-16T10:04:06","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T10:04:06","slug":"volunteers-search-for-isis-kidnap-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/16\/volunteers-search-for-isis-kidnap-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"Volunteers Search for ISIS Kidnap Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/30\/multimedia\/00yazidi-rescuers-ibrahim-mjbz\/00yazidi-rescuers-ibrahim-mjbz-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Volunteers Search for ISIS Kidnap Victims\" title=\"Volunteers Search for ISIS Kidnap Victims\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-dm4b14 e1wiw3jv0\">No international body is searching for hundreds of Yazidi women and girls still held captive by the Islamist terrorists. Instead, their fates depend on a ragtag army of activists, relatives and armchair detectives.<\/p>\n<p><time class=\"ep4cyha0 css-18fdffg e16638kd0\" datetime=\"2025-02-16T05:00:32-05:00\">Feb. 16, 2025<\/time><\/p>\n<hr class=\"css-7ad88g e1mu4ftr0\"\/>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The investigator\u2019s eyes dart between the two photographs. In one, a young girl, maybe 10, is wearing a colorful shirt, her hair loose. In the other, a woman, her face weathered to an indeterminate age and framed by a black hijab, stares into the camera.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The first picture is among hundreds of images of young girls sent in by families desperate to find loved ones who were kidnapped years ago, when militants from the Islamic State first roared to power in Iraq and Syria. The pictures of older women come in from a variety of sources.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The woman examining the photographs has become skilled at finding the telling detail that might help confirm an identity \u2014 and lead to someone\u2019s freedom. But she is not a professional investigator. Her name is Pari Ibrahim, and by day she is the executive director of a nonprofit in suburban Maryland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At night, by the glow of a laptop screen, that she scours the photos, hoping to locate women taken captive as long as a decade ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cSometimes, late at night, I\u2019m working to see if this girl is someone who can be identified,\u201d said Ms. Ibrahim, as she compared the two photographs, searching the faces for any hint \u2014 the bow of the lips, perhaps, or a telltale mole \u2014 that she might be looking at the same person.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cTen years brings a lot of change into someone\u2019s face and appearance,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not easy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The missing people are all members of a religious minority, the Yazidi, who were a particular focus of the brutal campaign of terror that ISIS, also known as the Islamic State, launched in 2014. In the years that followed, according to a United Nations <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ohchr.org\/sites\/default\/files\/Documents\/HRBodies\/HRCouncil\/CoISyria\/A_HRC_32_CRP.2_en.pdf\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">commission<\/a>, the militants murdered, enslaved, raped and tortured at will. Some 3,100 Yazidis were killed and 6,800 kidnapped in August 2014 alone, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC5423550\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">one study<\/a> estimates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-5827c4ef\">The Rescuers<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Now, more than half a decade since the Islamic State\u2019s self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq fell, nearly 2,600 Yazidis remain unaccounted for, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/freeyezidi.org\/missing-yezidis\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">according<\/a> to Ms. Ibrahim\u2019s nonprofit, the Free Yezidi Foundation; in 2022, the United Nations Refugee Agency put the number around 3,000. The foundation, which uses an alternative spelling for the ethnoreligious group, provides support services to members of the Yazidi diaspora.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Many are presumed dead, but Ms Ibrahim is hopeful that as many as 1,000 are still in captivity, held by their kidnappers or transferred to fighters\u2019 extended families throughout the Middle East.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Although the United Nations has called treatment of the Yazidis genocide, the U.N. agency mandated to collect evidence of ISIS atrocities <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/09\/05\/world\/middleeast\/yazidi-genocide-mass-graves.html\" title=\"\">ceased operating<\/a> last year. There is no official entity dedicated to finding the women \u2014 and their children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That task has been taken up by a sprawling network of activists, survivors, family members, informants and amateur detectives like Ms. Ibrahim, a Yazidi whose family left Iraq in the early 1990s. The New York Times interviewed people based in Maryland, Germany, Australia, Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">They described a modern-day Underground Railroad, on which journeys often begin with snippets of information and photographs shared via messaging apps. Sometimes that information is conveyed to families of the missing, some of whom hire informants and human smugglers to reunite them with their loved ones. Other times it is shared with the local authorities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One member of the unofficial network, Abduallah Abbas Khalaf, helped free his niece from the Islamic State in 2014 using connections he made working as a beekeeper and honey vendor in Aleppo, Syria. Mr. Khalaf, who is Yazidi and is based in Iraq, says he went on to help free other captives through a variety of methods, including impersonating militants online.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe used to log into ISIS telegram channels and we used to pretend that we were ISIS members,\u201d he said. To appear more convincing, he said, he would sometimes inquire about weapons and equipment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey would welcome us,\u201d Mr. Khalaf said, \u201cand after a period of time, they would post pictures of girls or boys for selling.\u201d As he pretended to be negotiating the price, he said, he would really be trying to coax out the whereabouts of the captives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Khalaf shared screenshots from what appeared to be ISIS messaging channels on which women and children were being trafficked. The images showed forum users haggling over sex slaves. The Times was not able to independently verify the source of the images because many of the channels have since been made private or deleted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At the height of the Islamic\u2019s State\u2019s reign in the portions of Syria and Iraq that it conquered, the enslavement and sale of women was conducted openly. Later, it became more discreet, experts said. Women and girls have been bought and sold online, and then transferred across national borders quietly, making the work of those who would rescue them all the more difficult.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhile the public Yazidi slave markets of the Islamic State caliphate period no longer exist,\u201d said Devorah Margolin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, \u201csome women remain enslaved by Islamic State affiliates and continued to be sold by supporters of the group even after the fall of its caliphate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">According to investigators, experts and news reports, captives have been found in homes connected to ISIS members as far away as Turkey and the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cpw5v077nyjo\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Gaza Strip<\/a>. Other Yazidis have ended up alongside their captors in overcrowded and dangerous desert camps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">About 3,600 Yazidis have managed to get back to their families, according to Nadia\u2019s Initiative, another nonprofit group that works with the Yazidi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One of them, Sherine Hakrash, said she had been held captive in Syria with her two daughters until she was sold to a Saudi man. Speaking haltingly and at times in tears by telephone from her new home in Australia, Ms. Hakrash said it was too painful to talk about what the girls looked like when she last saw them, in 2018.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI don\u2019t know anything about them,\u201d she said. \u201cIf they are alive. If they need me. How their situation is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The upheavals in the Middle East over the past year and a half have further complicated efforts to locate and rescue missing people. In Iraq, for example, the government recently directed a team of international experts investigating ISIS crimes to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/09\/05\/world\/middleeast\/yazidi-genocide-mass-graves.html\" title=\"\">wind down their work<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Syria, the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad has led both to hope and fear among Yazidis. They want to take the opportunity to search for the missing, but worry that instability may pave the way for an ISIS resurgence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-17f80a4c\">The Detention Camp<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As their caliphate fell in 2019, ISIS fighters fled across the region, some taking their captives with them. In many cases women were forced to marry their kidnappers, integrating them into expansive clans that could then traffic them around the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In December in Germany, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/germany-iraq-is-yazidi-children-slaves-205aa00b02ec7bd649fa023052cfd1e5\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">federal prosecutors<\/a> accused two people they said were Iraqi members of ISIS of sexually abusing two young Yazidi girls they kept as slaves. The girls had been held captive by the couple when they were 5 and 12. In Gaza, a woman kidnapped by ISIS at age 11 and, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/video\/iraq-gaza-iraq-government-israel-islamic-state-group-f291fcd0602748cb91d1924acf63a931\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">American officials say<\/a>, later sold and forced to marry a Hamas fighter, was rescued in October after her captor died.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Captivity for some Yazidis grew still worse after their captors were themselves detained.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some ended up in Al Hol, a sprawling nightmare of a detention camp in the desert of eastern Syria. Captive Yazidi women there are forced to live alongside ISIS members and their families. The camp, in which thousands of people are held, is dangerous \u2014 murders are common and there have been reports of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/2022\/11\/16\/syria-al-hol-camp-egyptian-girls\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">beheadings<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For the network of rescuers, Al Hol presents a special challenge. Captives there are reluctant to identify themselves as Yazidis for fear that the ISIS members in their midst, some of whom have organized themselves into a religious police force, will target them. Others may have been taken captive when they were too young to know their heritage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe way they were enslaved outside Al Hol camp, they are enslaved inside \u2014 the torture, everything,\u201d said the camp\u2019s director, Jihan Hanan, who has worked with Yazidi investigators to help extricate captives in the camp.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One member of the informal rescue network, Barjas Khidhir Sabri, is a Yazidi from Sinjar Province in Iraq who currently lives in an Iraqi camp for internally displaced people. It is<span class=\"css-8l6xbc evw5hdy0\">  <\/span>about 100 miles from Al Hol.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">From his tent, using little more than his wits and a smartphone, Mr. Sabri has developed his own web of informants, which include men he says are ISIS members living at Al Hol.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI don\u2019t trust them and they don\u2019t trust me,\u201d Mr. Sabri said of the ISIS members. \u201cI have to work with them. I have no regrets because any possible way we can save women and girls, it is worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-10\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Ibrahim said the Free Yezidi Foundation did not deal with ISIS members under any circumstances. But for many families, desperation overshadows the disgust of dealing with \u2014 and even paying \u2014 those who belong to the terrorist group, Mr. Sabri said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When a woman in the camp is identified as a possible Yazidi captive, Ms. Hanan works with security guards to arrange a discreet interview.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Hanan said she had seen seven Yazidi girls and women liberated from Al Hol in at least the past two years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But it is not always simple.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some Yazidi women who have given birth to their captors\u2019 babies fear their children may not be accepted by the Yazidi community. Some who have been raped fear returning home only to be shunned. Still others who were captured as young children know nothing but their captors\u2019 families and may not even realize that they are Yazidi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe have to make sure the woman is able to make a choice in a safe space,\u201d said Ms. Ibrahim, the nonprofit director.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-11\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Marwa Nawaf Abas, embraced the opportunity for freedom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI was held captive as a sex slave for three months of torture and sold on to several ISIS terrorists,\u201d Ms. Abas, who was 21 when she was rescued, said in an interview.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After escaping from her captors in Raqqa, Syria, in 2014, Ms. Abas was offered temporary protection by a local family. She contacted her uncle, and her family paid smugglers to take her from the ISIS-controlled area to a Kurdish-controlled one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Abas moved to Germany, and works at a hair transplant center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI am very happy now in Germany,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Falih Hassan<!-- --> contributed reporting from Baghdad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/16\/world\/middleeast\/isis-women-kidnapped.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No international body is searching for hundreds of Yazidi women and girls still held captive by the Islamist terrorists. Instead, their fates depend on a ragtag army of activists, relatives and armchair detectives. Feb. 16, 2025 The investigator\u2019s eyes dart between the two photographs. In one, a young girl, maybe 10, is wearing a colorful [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/30\/multimedia\/00yazidi-rescuers-ibrahim-mjbz\/00yazidi-rescuers-ibrahim-mjbz-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14019,11098,163657,12873,1209,1988,19366,5544,66668,186817],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240026"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240028,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240026\/revisions\/240028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}