Three Iraqi children abducted by Islamic State from Sinjar found in Syria
Displaced children who fled the clashes queue to receive aid from Iraqi security forces in Antesaar neighborhood of Mosul, Iraq, January 24, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
The three children were abducted three years ago in Sinjar, northwest of Mosul in Nineveh. They were found by an Iraqi citizen in Syria, Baghdad Today website reported on Thursday.
The citizen contacted the consulate in Gaziantep so the children would be transferred to their, the report added. They are supposed to head to Baghdad by aeroplane to reunite with their families there.
Meanwhile, Iraq Consul Mo’ayyad Omar Kuperli said in remarks that the citizen who found the children directly contacted him. The consulate then contacted the Iraqi Foreign Ministry and families of the children to return the children to them.
Sinjar region is the home of the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi religious minority which came under the international spotlight due to massacres and slavery they had endured under Islamic State militants’ rule.
Iraqi forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition and paramilitary troops, have been fighting since October 2016 to retake territories Islamic State had occupied.
The war against IS has displaced nearly five million people, with tens of thousands of civilians and militants killed since the launch of the offensives to recapture occupied cities.