Sex slave kidnapped by ISIS at 11 ‘was starved for four days then fed boiled babies’ during ten years of hell held captive by terrorists and their families

A Yazidi woman kidnapped by Islamist terrorists at the age of 11 has given a harrowing account of her years in captivity and the brutality she faced as a sex slave by ISIS before being trafficked to Gaza.

Fawzia Amin Saydo, now 21 years old, was torn from her home in Sinjar, Iraq, along with dozens of other children and women, whose babies she said were slaughtered by the terrorists.

The group went hungry for four days before they were handed plates of meat and rice, Fawzia said. Desperate for food, they ate what was on the table, but soon developed stomach aches and felt nauseous.

“When we were done, they told us the meat was from the babies,” Fawzia said. “There was a woman who had a heart attack at that moment and died.”

She told me The sun that the ruthless terrorists taunted the group with photos of decapitated children and babies, telling them, “These are the children you ate.”

One of the women allegedly recognized her own baby from the photos, Fawzia reportedly recalled in her gruesome testimony.

Fawzia Amin Sido is seen in a photo shared by Iraqi authorities after she returned home

A video has been shared showing Fawzia being reunited with her family after her escape

File image taken from a propaganda video released by Islamic State on March 17, 2014

Fawzia was taken from her family in 2014 and subsequently spent ten years in captivity, first being bought and sold into slavery in Syria.

According to Israeli media, in 2015, as a twelve-year-old, she was forced to marry a 24-year-old Palestinian ISIS supporter. The child bride lived in Raqqa and had two children, a boy and a girl.

In 2019, her husband was reportedly killed during Islamic State’s final battle in the Euphrates Valley.

Fawzia and her children were sent with other families to the Al-Hawl camp in northern Syria, a place where some 10,000 people lived at the time and where conditions were notoriously dire.

From there, she was smuggled into Turkey with the help of IS to be under the ‘protection’ of her late husband’s family, who then allegedly sent her to Gaza via Egypt in 2020.

Fawzia said she was subjected to horrific treatment by her husband’s family, who regularly beat her and restricted her freedom.

She also told The Sun that she had been treated like a ‘sabaya’ – or slave – by Hamas.

During this period she became separated from her two young children, according to her German lawyer Zemfira Dlovani, who said they were “taken” from their mother.

Steve Maman shared a photo of himself speaking to Fawzia after saying he was involved in her rescue

‘Of course it hurt her, every mother knows what it feels like not to be with their children. That wasn’t her choice. It is not an option for them to be reunited,” Dlovani said.

Other reports have suggested that Fawzia’s children were also trafficked to Gaza, but had to be abandoned by their mother in her desperate bid to escape, knowing they would not be accepted into the Yazidi community as the product of rape.

In August 2023, after suffering without her family for almost a decade, Fawzia managed to get help through an online plea.

In an emotional TikTok video, in which she wore a hijab and covered part of her face with a crying emoji, she reportedly said: “I hope you can save me from this place… If anyone enters Palestine, regardless of location, I will go to them.’

She came into contact with a lawyer and other intermediaries, who helped organize an operation to get her out of Gaza.

Led by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Cogat, the Israeli agency working in Gaza and the West Bank, it involved meticulous planning.

A fully veiled woman holds her baby as civilians fleeing the embattled Islamic State group Baghouz walk through a field on February 13, 2019

On October 1, Fawzia finally got the call she had been waiting for: help was on the way.

She was ordered to flee to a shelter to be picked up by a vehicle sent to take her out.

“The young girl was taken from the Gaza Strip in recent days during a covert operation through the Kerem Shalom border crossing,” the IDF said in a statement earlier this month.

“After entering Israel, she was taken to Jordan via the Allenby Crossing and then to her family in Iraq.”

Canadian Jewish philanthropist Steve Maman, dubbed the “Jewish Schindler” by some for his efforts to rescue the Yazidis from ISIS captivity, said he was among those who helped organize the incredible feat.

Maman shared a heartwarming video after news of her rescue broke, which he said showed Fawzia reuniting with her family shortly after news broke that she was finally free.

The young woman hugs loved ones after reportedly spending 10 years in captivity

Canadian Jewish philanthropist Steve Maman shared a heartwarming video in which he says Fawzia reunited with her family

“I promised Fawzia the Yazidi, who was held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, that I would take her back home to her mother in Sinjar,” Maman wrote on X.

‘To her it seemed surreal and impossible, but not to me: my only enemy was time. Our team reunited her with her mother and family in Sinjar a few moments ago.”

Fawzia’s rescue is said to have been achieved after several failed attempts, as well as years of diplomatic discussions and planning.

After her rescue was confirmed, Hamas released a statement claiming that Fawzia had been living in Gaza voluntarily – and only wanted to leave because of the war.

She hit back, calling this “a lie,” and saying she is now happy and can finally “breathe again.”

More than 6,000 Yazidis were captured by IS from Iraq’s Sinjar region in 2014, many sold into sexual slavery or trained as child soldiers and transferred across borders, including to Turkey and Syria.

According to Iraqi authorities, more than 3,500 people have been rescued or released over the years, while around 2,600 remain missing.

Many are feared dead, but Yazidi activists say they believe hundreds may still be alive.