"Four years full of fear".. Yazidi Wafaa recalls her agony in al-Hol camp

Shafaq News / Wafaa Ali, a Yazidi woman, recently freed from ISIS captivity in the Syrian camp of al-Hol, recalls her four years of suffering with eyes full of tears and hope. After all, Wafaa was too terrified to leave her tent because she had witnessed daily murders inside the camp.

Bloodshed in the camp

"I was transferred from the Syrian village of Baghouz to al-Hol camp where I stayed for four years filled with fear, as a result of the ill-treatment I received from the family I was staying with."

"I witnessed ISIS leaders' disputes, the torture methods they employed on camp inmates, murders, and many other violent deeds. It all made me too terrified to get out of my tent."

"I had no idea what happened to my family after I was kidnapped from my village Kocho, south of Sinjar."

Freed by chance

Wafaa revealed how she was liberated by chance after the Syrian Democratic Forces (S.D.F.) raided the camp and arrested her, "I was very scared because I did not know who took me at night. I was interrogated without knowing what was happening, but I confessed to them that I am a Yazidi from Sinjar. Then, they contacted my family and relatives who were liberated before me, except for my brother."

"My parents currently live in Canada, and I have contacted them," she said, hoping to join them again.

Official statistics issued by the Department of Abductees Affairs in Kurdistan confirm that more than 350 Yazidis, the majority of whom are women and children, were freed from ISIS's control after being kidnapped in 2014. However, the fate of more than 2,700 others is still unknown more than eight years after the abduction.