Yazidi girl kidnapped aged nine by ISIS and sold as a sex slave by one jihadist to another details hellish existence of being raped and tortured for years

By ELIANA SILVER, SENIOR FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER Published: 09:38, 28 June 2026 | Updated: 09:43, 28 June 2026 Fawzia Amin Sido was just nine years old when ISIS militants tore her from her home in Sinjar, northern Iraq, and dragged her into a decade of captivity, rape and torture. She and her family were among the 6,417 Yazidi women and children abducted by ISIS and forced into sexual slavery or labour after the terror group swept through the region in 2014, massacring thousands. Recalling the day her life was shattered, Sido told the Daily Mail how ISIS raided Sinjar, also known as Shingal, on August 3, 2014, as her family slept on the roof of their home to escape the summer heat. 'When ISIS attacked Shingal, we were sleeping on the roof of our house, which is customary for us during hot days,' she said.  'My family immediately ran down to the first floor. I stayed upstairs alone on the roof for about two hours, while bullets passed all around me. I felt immense fear, as if those hours would never end. 'After about two hours, my brother came and took me with him. Night had fallen. We went first to my grandmother's house, and from there to the mountains.' But the family's attempt to flee failed. ISIS tracked them down, seized Sido and tore her away from her siblings. 'In the midst of the fear, chaos and escape, [my brother] was the most important thing to me. But when Daesh [ISIS] came, they tore me away from his hand,' she said, adding: 'This is the memory that stays with me to this day.' Fawzia Amin Sido was just nine years old when ISIS militants tore her from her home in Sinjar, northern Iraq (Pictured: Sido as a child) Displaced Yazidi people from Sinjar flee violence from ISIS in August, 2014 Over the years that followed, Sido was sold to five different men from Syria, Saudi Arabia and Gaza, each one torturing and abusing her. 'To them, I was not a human being with feelings, dreams or a family,' she said. 'They sold me, gave me orders and controlled me. They tied me up, beat me and raped me. They electrocuted me and treated me with severe cruelty.' The last man she was sold to was a 24-year-old Palestinian jihadist known as Abu Amar al-Makdisi. He forcibly married her and repeatedly raped and beat her. In a previous interview, Sido described how he drugged her to force her to have sex. 'He went to a pharmacy and brought a drug that numbs part of the body. He gave me the drug and I cried,' she said. During her captivity, she gave birth to two children while continuing to endure sexual, physical and emotional abuse from her captor, who became increasingly violent after taking a second wife. 'The worst thing that could happen to a woman in this world happened to me,' she said. 'I was even forced to sleep while standing up. The physical and psychological effects are deep and stay with me to this day.' By the end of 2018, after the Syrian Democratic Forces defeated ISIS, 15-year-old Sido lost contact with al-Makdisi after he fled to Idlib. She briefly reunited with him in early 2019 before he was later reported dead. Sido and her children were then taken to the SDF-controlled al-Hawl refugee camp, from which jihadists smuggled them through a tunnel into Turkey. She was later given a fake Jordanian passport, and the family of her Palestinian captor met her and the children in Cairo before smuggling them into Gaza in 2020. Once in Gaza, she says she was treated by her captor's relatives 'like a kind of domestic slave' and imprisoned for months. 'I was imprisoned for three months in a place with no windows, and no one cared whether I was alive or dead,' she said. 'I was a lost girl. I was forced to do absolutely everything. I was used in the exact same way people were enslaved during the era of colonialism. It is disgusting. I did not feel like a human being; rather, I felt like a piece of property.' The isolation was often unbearable, especially during holidays such as Eid al-Fitr. 'Everyone would sit with their families, while I felt an indescribable loneliness,' she said. During one period, she said she lost all hope and attempted to take her own life numerous times, believing death might be the only way to see her family again. She was subsequently forcibly hospitalised for a month in a mental health institution by her Hamas-linked family. In a previous anonymous interview with The Jerusalem Post while still in Gaza, she said: 'Over time I became more and more psychologically ill and I became afraid of everything called Hamas, because they were the ones who handed me over to the hospital. 'Every now and then Hamas would take me and my phone and torture me.' After the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, Sido said she was sent to Gaza's main hospital to work as a slave. Sido escaped her captors in late 2023 after a Hamas fighter holding her was killed in an Israeli airstrike, before being rescued by a combined operation (Pictured: Sido after being rescued)  Sido reuniting with her mother and surviving relatives after her rescue She and other young women were housed at Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, which she said was patrolled by armed Hamas fighters. 'All hospitals were used as Hamas bases. They all had weapons. There were weapons everywhere,' she claimed. Through years of captivity, Sido said the memory of her family was the only thing that kept her alive. 'The memory of my family and my mother tongue gave me strength. It reminded me of who I am and where I came from,' she said. 'I wanted to return to them one day.' Eventually, after years of abuse, she managed to get hold of a phone and secretly recorded a TikTok video describing her plight. 'A woman gave me a phone. I recorded a video in my native language while wearing the niqab, then lifted it, and uploaded it to TikTok,' she said. 'The first attempt failed because many people did not believe that a Yazidi girl could be in Gaza. But on the second attempt, I was believed.' After being anonymously interviewed by several media outlets, including Rudaw and The Jerusalem Post, an escape plan was put in motion. Sido escaped her captors in late 2023 after a Hamas fighter holding her was killed in an Israeli airstrike, before being rescued by a combined operation. Israeli intelligence said it had uncovered her case and worked with US authorities to secure her freedom. According to the IDF, the operation involved coordination between COGAT, the US Embassy in Jerusalem and other members of the international community. Sido was eventually allowed to enter Israel, where she received food and medical care before being escorted by US officials to Jordan.  She then travelled to Iraq, where she was reunited with her mother and surviving relatives in Mosul before returning to Shingal, her birthplace. 'At first they did not believe it, until they saw me with their own eyes,' she said. 'My family was waiting for me there. The reunion was moving to an extent that cannot be described in words. 'When I realised I was free, the feeling was indescribable. Freedom after years of captivity feels like something unrealistic.' Her father, however, was not be there to witness his daughter's return, because he died of a heart attack just two months prior, 'caused by the pain of the separation from her', Sido's brother later told the media. Now living in Germany under humanitarian protection, Sido says her greatest wish is to be reunited permanently with her family. 'I live in Germany and have humanitarian protection. This means that I cannot travel to Iraq to see my family. My father passed away before I obtained protection. I was not able to see him,' she said. 'Since then, my mother has been living alone in Iraq, and my brother is also still there. Being separated from my family weighs very heavily on me.' Now living in Germany under humanitarian protection, Sido says her greatest wish is to be reunited permanently with her family She added: 'The hardest part for me is that my mother is sick. I worry about her every day. After losing my father, I do not want us to spend the time we have left far apart from one another.  'My greatest wish is to spend the rest of my life with my mother and to support her for as long as she needs me. 'I am now over 18 years old, and I hope that I will be given the opportunity for family reunification in Germany. Family reunification is not just a legal procedure; it means safety, solidarity and the chance for a shared life after years of suffering, loss and separation.' She also appealed to organisations supporting abducted Yazidi women to recognise the suffering caused by family separation. 'I ask all organisations working for the rights of abducted and persecuted Yazidi women to recognise the reality of separated families.' It is unknown what happened to Sido's children.  Sido's testimony comes as on June 18, a first-of-its-kind Community-Based Truth Commission was established to address the failure of international governments and organisations to deliver justice for Yazidi victim-survivors more than a decade on from the genocide. According to Amnesty International, between 2,600 and 3,000 Yazidis remain missing following the 2014 ISIS genocide. The Truth Commission will be convened in the German Bundestag in November 2026 and will hear oral evidence from over 30 survivor-experts, and evidence of crimes such as slavery, torture and murder will be presented. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. 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