Torn apart by Islamic State and reunited in Calgary, three Ezidi sisters see a brighter future
Refugees Jihan and Munifa Khudher learned their sister, Hudda, was alive only after they came to Canada. When The Globe told their story in 2018, Hudda’s application to join her siblings had been rejected. Now, all three are finally together
Nearly five years after Islamic State militants stormed into an Iraqi village and violently separated members of their family, two Ezidi sisters waited anxiously outside an arrivals gate at the Calgary International Airport.
Munifa Khudher, the younger of the two, carried a bouquet of flowers wrapped in pink paper.
Jihan, 30, and Munifa, 27, had not seen their youngest sister, Hudda, since Islamic State militants summoned the residents of their village, Kojo, into a town square in 2014. The sisters were pulled apart from their two brothers and mother, taken captive and sold separately into a brutal system of slavery. Briefly, in 2015, Jihan persuaded her captors to allow Hudda to stay with her, but that quickly ended. It was the last time either sister saw her.
Over the next years, they had little knowledge of what happened to one another or the rest of their family. Jihan and Munifa escaped their captors and found each other in a refugee camp in Iraq in late 2016. They came to Canada in the summer of 2017 as part of the Victims of Daesh program, which was set up by the Canadian government to help resettle displaced Ezidis, a predominantly religious minority. The two sisters were living in Calgary when they learned that Hudda – only 16 when they last saw her – was alive, freed and living in a refugee camp in Iraq.
CHRISTINA FRANGOU
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Ezidi24.com
Tags: #yazidisinfo #yezidi #ezidi #yezidiincanada
Torn apart by Islamic State and reunited in Calgary, three Ezidi sisters see a brighter future
Refugees Jihan and Munifa Khudher learned their sister, Hudda, was alive only after they came to Canada. When The Globe told their story in 2018, Hudda’s application to join her siblings had been rejected. Now, all three are finally together
Nearly five years after Islamic State militants stormed into an Iraqi village and violently separated members of their family, two Ezidi sisters waited anxiously outside an arrivals gate at the Calgary International Airport.
Munifa Khudher, the younger of the two, carried a bouquet of flowers wrapped in pink paper.
Jihan, 30, and Munifa, 27, had not seen their youngest sister, Hudda, since Islamic State militants summoned the residents of their village, Kojo, into a town square in 2014. The sisters were pulled apart from their two brothers and mother, taken captive and sold separately into a brutal system of slavery. Briefly, in 2015, Jihan persuaded her captors to allow Hudda to stay with her, but that quickly ended. It was the last time either sister saw her.
Over the next years, they had little knowledge of what happened to one another or the rest of their family. Jihan and Munifa escaped their captors and found each other in a refugee camp in Iraq in late 2016. They came to Canada in the summer of 2017 as part of the Victims of Daesh program, which was set up by the Canadian government to help resettle displaced Ezidis, a predominantly religious minority. The two sisters were living in Calgary when they learned that Hudda – only 16 when they last saw her – was alive, freed and living in a refugee camp in Iraq.
CHRISTINA FRANGOU
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Ezidi24.com
Tags: #yazidisinfo #yezidi #ezidi #yezidiincanada
