A video showing an injured woman being rescued from a camp by military personnel has gone viral on social media, claiming that 38 girls from India were held as sex slaves by the Islamic State (ISIS) and were later rescued.
The video is shared on Facebook with a caption: “The UN Army stormed an ISIS base and rescued 38 girls from India, enslaved for sex. Look at the way the girls had been chained, to be used at will. For those who claim that *The Kerala Story* is pure fiction, this is proof that it’s pure fact! वन्देमातरम ”
Here’s the link to the above post (archive).
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above claim, and found it to be MISLEADING.
Performing a Reverse Image Search, we traced a news report carrying glimpses of the viral video on September 6, 2022. According to the report, the video shows women rescued from the Al-Hol refugee camp, which was previously under the control of ISIS. The operation to liberate the women was carried out by the YPJ (Women’s Protection Unit), an all-female militia unit of the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces).
The report also carries an extended YouTube video, dated September 6, 2022, uploaded on SDF Press. However, neither the report nor the YouTube video mentions that the women rescued in the video were of Indian, Bangladeshi or Hindu descent.
According to a statement by the United States Central Command website, dated September 18, 2022, the YPJ Forces announced the completion of a security operation in the Al-Hol camp. The statement mentioned that the rescued six women had been enslaved and subjected to torture by ISIS. It was noted that some of these women had been captured as children. However, the statement did not provide specific details about the identities or backgrounds of the victims.
Searching further, we identified a Twitter thread by the Information and Documentation Department of the YPJ, which includes the viral video and provides additional information about the rescue operation. It states that the women in the viral video are Yezidi, a Kurdish minority group. But there was no detailed information about the women of South Asian descent within the thread.
“The #Yazidi women from #Shengal who was found in the camp was kidnapped at young age. She was waiting for years for this day on which she will be liberated from the heavy violence she faced.”#Syria #YPJ #SDF #YPG #Hol
— YPJ Information (@YPJ_Info) September 7, 2022
Thus, we can conclusively say that an old video of rescuing the Yezidi women from an ISIS camp is shared with misleading claims.
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