Yazidi health crisis

Many Yazidi children were killed when IS overran their homeland in 2014. Now 6 years later, children of the Yazidi religious and ethnic minority who survived brutal captivity at the hands of the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq are suffering severe physical and mental health problems.

Amnesty International says that almost 2,000 Yazidi minors who have returned to their families after living under the captivity of the armed group calling itself Islamic State suffer a physical and mental health crisis.

When IS stormed into their ancestral heartland in northern Iraq, the Yazidis fled to Mount Sinjar. Many were killed and some 7,000 women and girls were seized and enslaved. Many of them were raped.

Some of the boys lost limbs in battle, while some girls who were raped may never be able to have children. Amnesty is calling for enslaved Yazidi women who had the babies of IS fighters to be resettled with their children abroad.

The 56-page report of Amnesty International reveals the significant difficulties now facing the approximately 1,992 children who have returned to their families after being kidnapped, tortured, forced to fight, raped, and subjected by the Islamic State to many other terrible human rights abuses.

“Although the nightmare of their past is behind them, these children continue to have difficulties. Having endured the horrors of war at an extremely young age, they now need the urgent support of Iraqi national authorities and the international community to build their future, “

said Matt Wells, deputy director of Crisis Response for Thematic Issues at Amnesty International.

“These children, survivors of heinous crimes, now face a legacy of terror. In the coming years, priority should be given to their physical and mental health so that they can fully reintegrate into their family and community. ”