After four years of being held captive by ISIS militants, four Yazidi youths–aged between 11 and 16–have been reunited with their families in Canada.
The boys were greeted by their families with tears of joy last night at Calgary International Airport.
“It’s a perfect time of year for them to arrive so their families can spend some good time with them over the holidays and then we can start working on integration,” Bindu Narula of the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society told CBC News.
Since 2017, more than 1,400 Yazidi families have resettled in Canada, including almost 300 in Calgary.
ISIS began attacking members of Iraq’s Yazidi community in August 2014.
A Yazidi family sits outside their tent at a camp for internal displaced persons on Feb. 22, 2017, in Dohuk, Iraq. Since 2017, more than 1,400 Yazidi families have resettled in Canada, including almost 300 in Calgary. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)
Thousands have been killed and enslaved since then in what the UN has described as a genocide.
Narula told CBC News that while reunions of this kind are joyous, they can also be bittersweet.
“There’s so much happiness. There’s also the feeling of every time somebody comes … you remember everybody who doesn’t come,” she said.
As for the four boys:
“Short term, they’re going to go home, they’re going to sleep, eat mom’s cooking,” Narula said.
With files from CBC News (Sarah Rieger, Lucie Edwardson, Hala Ghonaim)
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