Decade after ISIS atrocities: Yazidi families still searching for loved ones

Shafaq News – Duhok/Sinjar

As Yazidis marked the anniversary of the 2014 ISIS assault on Sinjar, families renewed appeals for help to determine the fate of thousands of women, children, and men abducted during the attack.

Um Barzan, a mother from Sinjar, has spent more than a decade searching for her son. “We’re desperate for international help to find out what happened to Barzan,” she told Shafaq News.

In Sharya camp, south of Duhok, Khdeida Musto recalled how ISIS abducted his wife and four children while he was away from home. “We’ve since found my daughter, wife, and three of my children, but one is still missing. We’re not giving up.”

Others, like Bahar—a mother of four—are still grappling with the aftermath of captivity. “ISIS held me and my children for nearly two years,” she said. “I was freed, but my husband and six relatives remain unaccounted for. We just want to know if they’re alive.”

Hussein al-Qaidi, Head of the KRG’s Office for Kidnapped Yazidis, said that while 3,590 survivors have been rescued so far, more than 2,550 remain missing. Search efforts are ongoing with the backing of Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani, he noted.

The Yazidi community remains among the most devastated by ISIS crimes. More than 200,000 people are still displaced—many living in camps—and those who returned to Sinjar face limited access to services and reconstruction aid.