SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Turkish police rescued a 7-year-old Yazidi girl held captive by two Islamic State (ISIS) members in Ankara, according to Turkish media.
Turkish police conducted an early morning raid in the capital Ankara to detain a suspected Iraqi ISIS member, identified by his initials S.O., the state-run news agency reported on Wednesday.
Another person, identified as N.H.R., was also arrested during the raid, Anadolu Agency said.
Anadolu reported that the suspected had once served as an officer in the Iraqi army, adding that he had been under surveillance by the Turkish intelligence agency.
The child was handed over to social services after the raid, which was conducted jointly by Turkey’s police and intelligence service, the DHA news agency reported.
Islamic State overran the Yazidi faith’s heartland of Sinjar in the Kurdistan Region in 2014, forcing young women into servitude as “wives” for its fighters and massacring men and older women.
The militants shot, beheaded, burned alive or kidnapped more than 9,000 members of the minority religion, in what the United Nations has called a genocidal campaign against them. According to community leaders, more than 3,000 Yazidis remain unaccounted for.
