Iraqi Prime Minister Pledges Action to Save 600 Yazidi Captives in Syria's al-Hol Camp

Shafaq News/ Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on Sunday vowed to address the plight of 600 Yazidi captives languishing in Syria's al-Hol camp.

Al-Sudani's decision follows an urgent appeal from lawmaker Mohama Khalil.

Shafaq News Agency obtained official documents revealing that al-Sudani has instructed the National Security Advisory to undertake the necessary measures to secure the release and rescue of the Yazidi captives held in the northeastern Syrian detention facility.

The notorious camp is run by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a mostly Kurdish umbrella group that was a vital American ally during the U.S. military's operations in the region.

More than 6,000 Yazidi women and girls are believed to have been abducted by ISIS as the group seized control of a third of Iraq and Syria's combined territory in 2014.

As they ran over countless Yazidi villages in the foothills of the Sinjar Mountains, ISIS militants killed the men and took the women and children as sex slaves.

After forcing ISIS out of the territory it controlled in early 2019, thousands of its fighters and their families surrendered to SDF forces and were placed in the al-Hol camp.

Al-Hol camp was the primary facility in the region used to shelter civilians fleeing ISIS-held territory as the group lost ground.

By March 2019, when ISIS lost its caliphate, the camp was home to nearly 70,000 people. There are still about 55,000 there, including 28,000 Iraqis, 19,000 Syrians and 8,000 people from other countries.

Most of their home nations have denied them the right to return, arguing that they pose a security threat.

The U.S. has repatriated virtually all of its citizens from al-Hol, leaving behind only Hoda Muthana and her half-Dutch child. The mother, a Yemeni-American dual national, was stripped of her U.S. citizenship.

ISIS militants still mingle among the refugees, and the forces that run the sprawling camp say they can do little to change the realities within its perimeter.

Yazidism, a religion that predates Islam, is considered heretical devil worship by ISIS and other Sunni Muslim extremist groups. Followers have long been targeted —along with Christians and other religious minorities in the region— by ISIS and al-Qaeda.

When ISIS took control of Christian and Yazidi areas, they would commonly force Christians to choose between execution, conversion to Islam, or fleeing ISIS territory.

The Yazidis, however, were given no such options.