Details have emerged of how a young Yazidi woman who was kidnapped by Islamic State and sold as sex slaves before being trafficked to Gaza was rescued thanks to a TikTok.
Fawzia Amin Sido was just 11 years old when she was forced to marry a Palestinian ISIS fighter and lured to Gaza.
After years of isolation from her family, the Iraqi woman, who is now 21 years old, escaped Gaza and returned home to an emotional welcome by her loved ones.
The end of her decade-long torment was catalyzed by a TikTok she posted begging for her freedom, but her troubles began at her home in the north of the country. Iraqwhere ISIS fighters kidnapped her in 2014 and sold her into sex slavery in Mosul, the country's capital.
Within the space of a year, she was handed over to two different ISIS fighters and raped repeatedly.
She was then transferred to the Syrian city of Raqqa, where she married a 24-year-old Palestinian ISIS member, whom she said she also belonged to. Hamas.
Sido, now 21, told Kurdish TV: “He told me I had to sleep with him. On the third day, he went to a pharmacy and bought a medicine that anesthetizes part of the body. He gave me the drug and I cried.
Fawzia Amin Sido (pictured) was just 11 years old when she was forced to marry a Palestinian ISIS fighter and lured to Gaza
After years of isolation from her family, the Iraqi woman, now 21, escaped Gaza and returned home to an emotional welcome by her loved ones.
The end of her decade-long torment was catalyzed by a TikTok she posted begging for her freedom
She gave birth to two children, a boy and a girl, during her time as a forced bride.
But in 2018, Sido's captor was killed while fighting for ISIS, which at the time had been driven out of Iraq by Kurdish forces backed by a Western coalition.
After spending some time in Al-Hawl, a cramped camp holding ISIS wives in northeastern Syria, where 100 women still live to this day, she was brought to Gaza after being smuggled from Egypt, in the best hands of her brother. your captor.
After arriving in Rafah in 2020, she was so unhappy in the hands of her family that she tried to take her own life.
They beat Sido and forced her to cook and clean.
Shortly before the October 7 attack, she made a TikTok imploring the public to contact Nadia Murad, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Yazidi activist.
“Help me,” she said. 'I'm very tired, it's not just your men, your women and children also harass me… They can attack me, kill me… it's really overwhelming.'
After her story resonated across the Arab world, it was picked up by Steve Maman, a Moroccan-born Canadian who makes a living selling vintage cars to collectors and also runs a charity dedicated to the release of girls and women kidnapped by ISIS.
A video has been shared that appears to show Fawzia reuniting with her family after her escape
Canadian Jewish philanthropist Steve Maman shared a touching video that he said showed Fawzia reuniting with her family
Known as the “Jewish Schindler,” he claims to have rescued 140 Yazidi women from the hands of ISIS.
He told the Times: “Rescuing Fawzia was the most difficult and complex of any rescue, like a Holocaust-era thing. The geopolitical situation has really complicated things.'
Known to Israeli, American, Jordanian and Iraqi officials for his previous work, he managed to persuade the Iraqi consulate in Jordan to issue travel documents in Sido's name in absentia, a notable step given that Iraq and Israel do not have diplomatic relations.
But this work took months and Sido was becoming desperate.
Eventually, the IDF was called in to make contact and evacuate her. In the early hours of October 1, she was picked up in Rafah in a car.
In an IDF control room, she was monitored for hours. Brigadier General Elad Goren, in charge of the exfil mission, told the Sunday Times: “We sent drones to escort the car in the air and directed its route to ensure it skirted the roads where Hamas and criminals operated.”
It took about 90 minutes for her to be taken to the intersection where her team and an ambulance were waiting.
'It was a big operation, but it didn't matter how many resources we invested, as we have a Hebrew saying: 'If we save one life, it's as if we saved the whole world.'
'I'm glad she's safe and if there are other similar cases in Gaza I encourage you to contact us.'
Once in good hands, she was taken to Jordan, where she was handed over to the Iraqi consulate, before being flown to Baghdad, north to Erbil for interrogation, and finally to her home in Sinjar, where she was reunited. with your family.
Although it should have been a happy time for them, her father tragically died of a heart attack just two months earlier, never being able to lay eyes on his daughter past the age of 11.
Furthermore, his family home was destroyed by ISIS.
Although Sido has returned to his family, his life will still be incredibly difficult.
“The family is very poor and Fawzia spent half her life in captivity and was quite traumatized by what she went through,” said Ahmed Qasim of the Nadia Initiative, the organization created by Nadia Murad, who visited her upon her return.
Additionally, Steve Maman said he now regrets leaving the two children behind in Gaza.
“She loved those kids. Now she's free, she's thinking about them and feeling why she couldn't have brought them too,' he admitted.
“But they are children of Hamas. There was no way they would have let her take them… Nor would the Yazidis have accepted her with them.'
