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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Welcome to the Neno's Place!

Neno's Place Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality


Neno

I can be reached by phone or text 8am-7pm cst 972-768-9772 or, once joining the board I can be reached by a (PM) Private Message.

Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

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    Iraqi couple wins U.S. award for daring missions to rescue Yazidi Kurds

    Rocky
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    Iraqi couple wins U.S. award for daring missions to rescue Yazidi Kurds Empty Iraqi couple wins U.S. award for daring missions to rescue Yazidi Kurds

    Post by Rocky Thu 20 Oct 2016, 6:43 am

    Iraqi couple wins U.S. award for daring missions to rescue Yazidi Kurds
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    Yazidi activists Khaleel Al-dakhi with his wife Ameena Saeed Hasan. Photo: Ekurd.net/Twitter Khaleel Al-dakhi/ cathyotten.co.uk
    NEW YORK,— Soon after Iraqi lawyer Khaleel Al-dakhi and his wife heard the chilling news that Islamic State militants were enslaving [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] women and children in Iraq, they began plotting a rescue mission from their home in the northern city of Dohuk.
    During a 2014 visit to refugee camps in Iraq’s Kurdistan region to get more information about the Yazidi women and girls who had disappeared, Al-dakhi met a couple whose 17-year-old daughter was held captive by the Islamist group.
    They offered Al-dakhi their phone so he could talk to the young woman, who had managed to keep in touch with her family.

    “She was saying that she wanted to commit suicide,” said Al-dakhi, 39, who was speaking through an interpreter in New York. “I told her, ‘I’m going to help you’.”
    Days later Al-dakhi and a quickly assembled network of collaborators had freed the girl, Maha, and smuggled her out of the Iraqi city of Mosul where she was being held captive.
    Two years on, Al-dakhi and his wife Ameena Saeed Hasan have turned what they thought would be a one-time rescue mission into a full-time underground operation, which they say has saved some 170 girls from Islamic State.
    Their work has won them an award from U.S.-based activist group Human Rights First, which was due to host a gala dinner later on Wednesday in recognition of their courage.
    “After we rescued one and two girls … the families heard we helped [kidnapped] girls so they came to us and gave us the locations of their daughters,” said Hasan, 36, a former member Iraq’s of parliament who once represented Sinjar district, where the couple used to live.
    SLEEPLESS NIGHTS
    Islamic State killed, captured or enslaved thousands of Yazidis when it overran the town of Sinjar in northern Iraq in August 2014.
    The United States, the European Parliament and the Council of Europe have described the group’s actions against the Yazidis, a religious sect whose beliefs combine elements of several ancient Middle Eastern religions, as genocide.
    The United Nations estimates that more than 3,000 Yazidi women and girls are still being held captive, some as sex slaves.
    As parents of a young daughter, Al-dakhi and Hasan said they could not tolerate others families’ suffering.
    “It’s affected me most as a woman and as a mother,” said Hasan, who carries around a mobile phone whose cover displays a picture of their 7-year-old daughter in a bright red dress.
    About one in every 100 abducted girls and women is in contact with the couple’s secret network of dozens of underground collaborators deep inside Islamic State-occupied territory, Al-dakhi estimates.
    Since their first rescue, they have received thousands of calls from enslaved women and desperate families, they said.
    Each rescue operation involves precise planning, accomplices and drivers willing to put their lives on the line as well as safe houses to hide the girls who sometimes are in touch using a smuggled cell phone.
    Logistics for each rescue can cost between $3,000 to $10,000, money that mostly comes from the Iraqi Kurdish authorities, Al-dakhi said.
    The constant life or death operations take an emotional toll, said Al-dakhi.
    “It’s very difficult to hear someone say they need to be rescued and (you) say you’re not able to help, especially when they are women,” he said. “At the beginning I couldn’t handle it, I couldn’t sleep at night.”
    The couple do not rule out an attempt on their lives even though they now live in the relative safety of the Iraqi town of Dohuk.
    Despite the dangers, Al-dakhi said he could not give up the work. “I won’t stop this work until this work stops,” he said.

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