You will all recall the horrors we witnessed on television as Daesh attacked the Yazidi people in August 2014. Nofa Zaghla is the matriarch of a family of seven that had been taken hostage. Shortly after, her husband and eldest son Emad were separated from her and her other four children. What they went through i don’t even want to contemplate right now.
After around two years, she and those same children escaped when an airstrike hit the prison compound they were being kept in. They spent about another year in a refugee camp before being flown to Canada, where they have been rebuilding their lives in Winnipeg. She’d had no contact with her husband and son in all that time, and feared they’d been killed.
Then, last year, during the Iraqi Army’s liberation of Mosul, Emad was freed. Suffering a gunshot wound and the effects of starvation, his image was posted to social media by the soldiers who found him. An uncle who was living in a Kurdish refugee camp in Dohuk Province recognised him and contacted his mother.
Ezidi boy rescued from IS hoping to be reunited with mother in Canada
“Because of [IS] being so evil, and torturing boys and killing everyone that doesn’t do, as they say, we didn’t think we would ever see [him] again,” she told CBC.
Zaghla said the Iraqi army took photos of him right after he was rescued and posted them online in hopes of finding relatives.
In a video sent to his mother, the boy pleaded to be reunited with her.
“Canada, please help me. I want to go to Canada with my mom,” the boy said.
Emad recuperated in the camp for awhile with his uncle before being allowed to come to Canada to be reunited with his family. He is now healthy and attending school.
This weekend he posted a video on Facebook where he posed a special request.
Boy who endured three years as ISIL captive asks for meeting with Justin Trudeau
A Yazidi boy who was held captive for three years by Iraqi militants before being reunited with his family in Winnipeg last year is requesting a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
In a video posted to Facebook by the Yazidi Association of Manitoba, 13-year-old Emad Mishko Tamo holds up a sign thanking Canada for helping him, followed by another sign stating that he wants to share his story and be a voice for other Yazidi children still in captivity.
"There's a thousand other kids like me who are still held captive," one of Emad's signs states.
The whereabouts of his father is unknown. There is little reason to believe that he is still alive.