SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Kurdish forces in Syria handed back children of alleged Islamic State (ISIS) members to their mothers from Yazidi minority in Iraq, AFP cited a Kurdish official as saying on Friday.
“The children, aged two to five, were all born to Yazidi mothers and fathered by ISIS members,” Kurdish official in northern Syria Zeyneb Saroukhan told APF.
The children were handed over to their mothers, she said.
Saroukhan added that it was the first time children had been given to their mothers.
She further said it had been the Syrian Kurdish authorities’ duty to look after the children until their mothers asked for them.
The Yazidis are an ancient religious minority who combine Zoroastrian, Christian, Manichean, Jewish and Muslim beliefs.
ISIS, which views the Yazidis as devil worshippers, killed more than 3,000, enslaved 7,000 Yazidi women and girls and displaced most of the 550,000-strong community from its ancestral home in northern Iraq.
U.S.-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) say they have rescued dozens during their years of battles against ISIS that led to their territorial defeat in 2019.
Yazidi women and children have previously returned from Syria to Iraq, but many of those abducted remain missing.
