The Islamic State (IS) group released more than 200 mostly elderly members of northern Iraq’s Yazidi minority who had been held for months.
The Yazidis were freed on Saturday on the front line southwest of the city of Kirkuk and met by Kurdish peshmerga forces who brought them to a health centre in Altun Kopri, on the road to the Kurdish regional capital of Arbil.
“These men and women had been held in Mosul,” Khodr Domli, a leading Yazidi rights activist told a news agency at the centre.
“We already have names for 196 and there could be some more.” “Some are wounded, some have disabilities and many are suffering from mental and psychological problems,” he said.
According to officials from Kirkuk and Arbil, the group was moved from Mosul via Hawija and freed at the Khaled entrance to Kirkuk.