‘If you can’t save us, please bomb us’: The U.S. must help free enslaved Yazidi women in Mosul

By Ameena Saeed Hasan and Khaleel Aldakhi October 19 at 2:58 PM

Ameena Saeed Hasan and Khaleel Aldakhi are Iraqi Yazidi activists who run a rescue network saving Yazidi women and girls who have been enslaved by the Islamic State. They are the recipients of the 2016 Human Rights First Award.

The calls come to Khaleel’s phone every day, dozens every week: Women and girls, held captive by the Islamic State, beg us to rescue them.

Like us, they are Yazidis. And in the wickedest of ironies, they are survivors of genocide, kept alive by the Islamic State to be raped and subjected to sexual slavery. They have heard about our rescue network and reach us on cellphones that they have managed to hide.

We save as many victims as we can and provide care to help rehabilitate them. Thus far, however, we’ve been able to help only a small number of the 3,700 who are enslaved. We believe most are in Mosul, which is Iraq’s second-largest city, the Islamic State’s most important stronghold after Raqqa in Syria and the largest urban center under the Islamic State’s control. So intense is the suffering of these women and girls that they tell us that they want the United States and other countries to attack Mosul, even if the bombs pose a threat to their lives.

The bombs have already started to fall in Mosul. A coalition of troops led by the Iraqi army — and including Kurdish peshmerga, Turkish and U.S. forces — recently launched its initial assault on the city in what is expected to be a major battle that lasts several weeks. But whether it leads to the liberation of Yazidi women and girls or to further suffering may depend on the current and future actions of the forces fighting the Islamic State — and the governments to which they belong.

There is an urgent need for measures to prevent the Islamic State from fleeing with its captives. As it stands now, we know that the Islamic State is holding a large majority of its Yazidi captives in Mosul, and a military victory by the coalition would offer an opportunity for their liberation. They will be nearly impossible to locate, however, if Islamic State militants are permitted to take them even deeper “underground.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2016/10/19/if-you-cant-save-us-please-bomb-us-the-u-s-must-help-free-enslaved-yazidi-women-in-mosul/?utm_term=.0546f1aa78a7&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1