Roza Emin, a young Yazidi woman, was in captivity for years. She survived and was brought back to her family in Sinjar (Shengal). She told Roj News about her experiences and what the Islamic State had planned for her.

The 3 August 2014 was a dark day for the Yazidis living in Iraq. The Iraqi Army and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Peshmerga were in Sinjar to protect them, but they fled as the Islamic State (ISIS) advanced. They left the Yezidis to their fate, and thousands were murdered, tortured or even sold as slaves.

Roza Emin Berekat was one of these women. She survived IS captivity and was freed by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Der Zor, northern Syria.

“When ISIS came to my neighborhood in Shengal on 3 August, they killed almost everyone they saw. We women were separated and then sold in markets,” said Roza in a press conference that was followed by celebrations in Sinjar.

But not all of her family members could be present. Her father, mother, sister and brother are still missing, and their fate is unknown. But she is confident that the authorities will bring her family back from captivity.

She talked about how ISIS tried to teach her the ideology of living with Islam. But this ideology was simply “psychological torture,” she points out.

ISIS wanted to take her to Turkey, but before the worst happened, the SDF freed her, and she was taken to Kobane, northeast Syria, where she met Sheikh Faurek, the head of the Yezidi home in Syria, who took her back to her family in Sinjar.

A spokeswoman for the Yezidi Women’s Relief Network, an aid organization working for Yezidis, expressed her sincere thanks to the SDF and especially to the women’s units in Rojava for making this reunion possible.

“But our fight is not over, we will save every woman in captivity,” she added.