- Source: Fawzia Amin Sido
Fawzia Amin Sido (Kurdish: Fewziya Emîn Seydo فەوزییە ئەمین سیدۆ Arabic: فوزية أمين سيدو b. 1999 or 2003) is a Yazidi woman from northern Iraq who was captured by the Islamic State (ISIS) as a 10-year-old child during the Yazidi genocide in 2014. She was held in captivity for a decade and subjected to physical and sexual abuse.
Initially she was forcibly married to a Palestinian ISIS militant in Syria, resulting in her having two children by him before she was 15. The militant sexually and physically abused her. After he was killed, she travelled with her two children to live with his family in the Gaza Strip in 2020. In 2023 the family's home was hit by an airstrike, and she fled to a shelter elsewhere in the Gaza Strip. The IDF said that the strike killed a "Hamas terrorist affiliated with ISIS" who was holding her captive.
Sido leaving the Gaza Strip was complicated by Iraq not having diplomatic relations with Israel. She was eventually allowed to enter Israel, then escorted to Jordan by American officials, and ultimately reunited with her family in Sinjar, Iraq. Media report indicates that the United States, Israeli, Iraqi, and Jordanian governments collaborated in her evacuation from the Gaza Strip.
Early experiences with captivity
Fawzia Amin Sido was abducted by ISIS on 3 August 2014, a month before her 11th birthday, on the first day of the attack, when ISIS overran the Sinjar District in Iraq. Two of her brothers were also captured, but her brothers were released 8 months later. Since her kidnapping, her family has had little communication with her.
By early 2015, Sido was transferred to Raqqa, Syria, where she was forcibly married to a 24-year-old Palestinian ISIS militant. She later recounted in an interview that "He told me that I had to sleep with him. On the third day, he went to a pharmacy and brought a drug that numbs part of the body. He gave me the drug and I cried". She faced continuous sexual and physical abuse from her husband, becoming pregnant and giving birth to two children at a young age. The husband became increasingly abusive, particularly after taking a second wife.
Hamas claim the first man she was married to was fighting for the anti-Assad and anti-ISIS Syrian opposition forces, not ISIS.
By the end of 2018, after U.S.-led Kurdish forces expelled ISIS from Syria, 15-year-old Saydo lost contact with her Palestinian captor, who fled to Idlib, which had been captured from Assad government forces by non-ISIS Sunni Islamists in 2015. In early 2019, she briefly reunited with him before he was reported dead.
Travel to the Gaza Strip
After the ISIS militant who bought her was killed, Sido traveled to live with his family in Gaza, fearing rejection from her community in Iraq due to the circumstances of her children's conception.
She and her children undertook a four-year journey through Turkey and Egypt, eventually arriving in the Gaza Strip around 2020. Once there, she faced significant hardship at the hands of her husband's family. Isolated from her own family, community, and native language, she experienced profound distress while caring for her two young children in her new environment.
The year before Fawzia arrived, three members of the Gaza Strip's police force had been killed by bombings at two police checkpoints, by suicide bombers believed to be affiliated with ISIS. According to The New York Times, some "local officials" suspected the bombers were either ISIS members or collaborators with Israel, Israel denied any connection to the attacks.
On 3 October 2024, the Director General of Yazidi Survivors Affairs at the Iraqi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs told Rudaw Media Network, "Fawzia was with an ISIS militant from the Gaza Strip, and his mother took her with her to the Strip 4 years ago after her son was killed". Washington, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said she was "kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq, sold and forced to marry a Hamas fighter in Gaza, moved to Gaza against her will". The Voice of America interview said that she has chosen to go to Gaza because she worried that she or her children would be rejected by her parents and community.
Living in the Gaza Strip
= Relationship with the family in Gaza
=Most sources said Sido was 21 when she left the Gaza Strip, but the media office in Gaza claimed she was 25.
Rudaw TV's Arabic service reported that, after moving to the Gaza Strip, Sido married the younger brother of the Palestinian militant who had died in Syria.
She told Kiddush TV that the her dead husband's family has been kind to her at first and provided her with support, but at some point they stopped supporting her and she was then supported by an unnamed philanthropist.
The IDF claimed that Sido had been held captive by a "Hamas terrorist affiliated with ISIS". Despite ISIS and Hamas having incompatible ideologies and a hostile relationship. Fox News claimed she was "forced to marry an alleged Hamas fighter" after arriving in Gaza.
She said that in fact Hamas treated her as a slave. After the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel, she was also sent to work as a slave in a hospital - and explained to "The Sun" that "all hospitals were used as Hamas bases. They all had weapons. There were weapons everywhere".
= Suicide attempts and detention
=In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Fawzia reported enduring severe abuse from both her husband's family and Hamas authorities, leading to multiple suicide attempts and a month of forced hospitalization.
Some report that the Gaza Strip had an unusually high suicide rate, particularly among young people around the time she arrived. In 2020 the Hamas government and the locally based non-government human rights group Al Mezan Center for Human Rights disagreed on the exact numbers, Al Mezan reported a "surge" while Hamas claimed there was a slight decrease. According to Amira Hass, an Israeli journalist for Haaretz based in the occupied West Bank, some of the attempted suicides in the Gaza Strip were allegedly "political", including some reports of attempted self-immolation.
= Interrogation by authorities in Gaza
=CNN reported Fawzia as saying, "Hamas constantly harassed me due to my Yazidi background and contact with my family, even going so far as to format my phone [erase its contents] during their investigations. After a year, they moved me to a guest house".
= Reasons for leaving
=Hamas claimed she left voluntarily. Gaza's government media office released a statement on 4 October 2024 that contradicted most elements of the Israeli version of events.
BBC Arabic quoted a long statement from Gaza's government press office in which Hamas contradicted most elements of the IDF story. They said that she was 25 years old and she had not been a captive (Arabic: الأسيرة, romanized: al-Aseera "the female prisoner of war" or "the female hostage"). Hamas claimed she was living in Gaza willingly and only wanted to leave because of the war. The United States State Department spokesperson said Sido had been "safely evacuated", not "rescued".
In a conversation with The Jerusalem Post, Sido expressed the gravity of her circumstances, "My situation is very bad. The situation here is grave in many ways. I need to find a way to get out of here as fast as possible. I want to get back to my family". She reported enduring severe abuse from both her husband's family and Hamas authorities, lead to her multiple suicide attempts and forced hospitalization. Despite feeling marginally safer in her current location, she conveyed her despair, questioning the purpose of sharing her story, stating, "Is there any benefit in me talking to you about my life, or is it just tiring me out? Because many have asked me and I told them everything, but unfortunately to no avail".
= Contact with the media
=Using a cell phone Sido recorded a TikTok video detailing her plight, which received attention from Rudaw News, a Kurmanji-speaking media outlet in Iraq, who subsequently assisted in locating her estranged family in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Fawzia was first interviewed by Rudaw News in August 2023, before the beginning of the escalation of the Israel–Palestine conflict in October 2023. Fawzia was interviewed by presenter Nasser Ali on Rudaw TV with her face almost completely covered by a dark Niqāb. Other Iraqi media interviewed her father, Amin Sido, and said he was critical of Rudaw's coverage.
Kurdish Media reported that Fawzia converted to Islam while in Syria.
She also spoke to Israeli media before leaving the Gaza Strip, using the name "Lucia" (Hebrew: לוסיה)
= Airstrike
=The Jerusalem Post said that in Gaza she was living with her two young children "at the home of her former husband’s family" (referring to the Palestinian who died in Syria).
Steve Maman, a Canadian Jewish businessman and head of The Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq, known for his efforts to rescue Yazidis from ISIS, told The Jerusalem Post in September 2024 that Fawzia Amin Sido escaped her captors in late 2023 after a "Hamas fighter" holding her was killed in an Israeli airstrike amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
The statement from the government in Gaza confirmed that her second husband, the younger brother of her children's father, had been killed in an Israeli air strike, but contradicted most other parts of the Israeli narrative. However, Fawzia did not mention a second marriage when she spoke to Rudaw Media Network in August 2023.
= Children
=Major news reports published when Fawzia left the Gaza Strip did not mention what happened to her children or whether they survived the airstrike on the family's house. Despite the length of the Hamas statement published by BBC Arabic, it did not mention where Sido's children were or whether they are still alive.
Rescue operation
In August 2024, an advisor to the Prime Minister of Iraq said that there were Yazidi women and children in both Iraq and Turkey and he was trying to rescue them.
There were multiple countries involved in her rescue or evacuation from the Gaza Strip. Several countries and organizations released conflicting reports about the nature of their roles. The Israeli military (and sympathetic sources) said she was being held captive by a militant in Gaza and the Israeli military had rescued her. Gaza's government media office released a statement on 4 October 2024 that contradicted most elements of the Israeli version of events, they said she has chosen to leave because of the war. The Iraqi foreign ministry praised groups from Iraq, Jordan, and the United States for Fawzia's safe return home, but did not mention Israeli involvement.
After Fawzia was interviewed by Rudaw News, Maman facilitated communication between her family and Israeli authorities, urging swift action from the Israeli National Security Council to orchestrate Sido's rescue and reunite her with her family. Utilizing his network, he arranged for a safe haven for Sido near Israel Defense Forces (IDF) positions, just two kilometers away from the Kerem Shalom border crossing.
The rescue process was prolonged and repeatedly rescheduled due to the challenges posed by the diplomatic rift between Israel and Iraq and a 2022 Iraqi law that criminalizes any ties with Israel. On 3 October 2024, reports confirmed Sido's release from Gaza. Israeli intelligence said that they had uncovered her situation, and had engaged with U.S. authorities for further assistance. An IDF report indicated that the operation involved coordination between the IDF's COGAT, the US Embassy in Jerusalem, and other members of the international community. Sido eventually allowed to enter Israel through the Kerem Shalom border crossing, where she received essential food and medical care, before being escorted by US officials to Jordan via the Allenby border crossing. Saydo arrived in Baghdad on the morning of October 2, and was escorted by Iraqi intelligence officers to Mosul, where she reunited with her mother and the rest of her surviving family.
Reactions to her return home
Fawzia's return to her parents and siblings was announced separately by Israel and Iraq. After she left the Gaza Strip, Brig. Gen. Elad Goren, who oversees Israeli humanitarian efforts in Gaza, remarked that Sido appeared to be physically well but was "not in a good mental situation" after years of abuse. A similar report was provided by Silwan Sinjaree, an official from the Iraqi Foreign Ministry.
See also
Notes
References
Kata Kunci Pencarian:
- Fawzia Amin Sido
- Fawzia
- Slavery in Palestine
- Yazidi genocide
- The Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq
- Human trafficking in the State of Palestine
- Rudaw Media Network
