Fawzia Amin Sido

Fawzia Amin Sido (Iraqi Arabic: فوزية أمين سيدو b. 2002/2003) 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 continuous physical and sexual abuse.

Initially she was forcibly married to a Palestinian ISIS militant in Syria, who sexually and physically abused her, resulting in having two children, before age 15. After the ISIS militant was killed, his family asked her to travel with the two children to the Gaza Strip, they arrived 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 claim 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 US 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.

Background

The self-described "Islamic State" in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) committed the Yazidi genocide. The genocide, which the United Nations has officially recognized, resulted in the killing of up to 10,000 Yazidis and the displacement of over 400,000. More than 6,000 Yazidis, including women and children, were enslaved by ISIS. In various Yazidi villages, men and boys over 14 were separated from women and girls, with the men being executed and the women abducted as "spoils of war". Some escaped Yazidi girls and women later reported being sold or given as "gifts" into sexual slavery to ISIS members.

The Yazidi women were quickly accepted by their communities, who knew that they had not gone willingly. But the Yazidi community did not accept children who were born from genocidal rapes committed by ISIS fighters. Widows and children of ISIS fighters faced difficulty seeking asylum, even if they were already citizens of other countries, and even though some of them were recruited as minors, or coerced into travelling there by parents or husbands. Their home countries were very reluctant to repatriate parents (usually widowed mothers) with ambiguous loyalty to ISIS, and as a result their young children were also stranded in detention camps in Syria for many years.

Early life and captivity

Fawzia Amin Sido was abducted a month before her 11th birthday when ISIS overran the Sinjar District in Iraq.

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 with 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.

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. In early 2019, she briefly reunited with him before he was reported dead.

Relocation to Gaza

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.

Rudaw TV's Arabic service reported that, after moving to the Gaza Strip, Sido married the younger brother of the first militant.

Rescue operation

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, informed The Jerusalem Post in September 2024 that Fawzia Amin Sido escaped her captors in late 2023 after a Hamas terrorist holding her was killed in an Israeli airstrike amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

The IDF claimed that Sido had been held captive by a "Hamas terrorist affiliated with ISIS". Fox News claimed she was "forced to marry an alleged Hamas fighter" after arriving in Gaza.

Using a cell phone Sido recorded a TikTok video detailing her plight, which received attention from Rudaw News, a Kurmanji-speaking media outlet that subsequently assisted in locating her estranged family. 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.

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, leading to multiple suicide attempts and a month of 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."

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. Le Monde credited the Israeli Army, but other sources didn't emphasize their role.

On October 3, 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 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.

After her rescue, Brig. Gen. Elad Goren, who oversees Israeli humanitarian efforts in Gaza, remarked that Sido appeared to be "more or less" 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

• Women in the Israel–Hamas war
• Yazidi genocide
• Nadia Murad
• Slavery in 21st-century jihadism
• List of kidnappings
• Women in Palestine
• Women in Iraq