Sana Sheikhmus, 37, and her husband had failed to have a child in 2017 after 11 years of marriage. The Kurdish family from Hasaka province in northeast Syria (Rojava) decided to adopt two children from an orphanage and were able to bring home two siblings.
“We met with the Women's Board. We were given two siblings. The boy was two years old and the girl was eight months old. They told us the children had no relatives and that they were now our children," the foster mother told Rudaw.
Five years later, a Yazidi woman claims to be the biological mother of the two children who are now aged six and seven. She was the wife of an ISIS fighter.
ISIS attacked Syria and Iraq in 2014, abducting and killing thousands from the ethnic-religious Yazidi people. Nearly half of the abductees have yet to be found. Yazidis have suffered numerous sufferings and massacres for decades.
The alleged biological mother's whereabouts are unknown. When Rudaw visited her father's house in Shingal, he said that the woman had fled the house in a bid to regain the children. He added that he will not tolerate a child born with an ISIS father.
In April 2019, the Yazidi Spiritual Council announced that children born to Yazidi women raped by ISIS captors would not be accepted into the faith.
The alleged biological mother has applied to the Women's Board in Rojava to take back the two children. The adoptive family, however, says they will not hand over the children without a DNA test to confirm the mother's identity.
"After five years, we hear that their mother has shown up and we must hand over the children. We told them they should bring the mother to us so we can do the tests legally," said Sheikhmus.
"They have become a part of me. I have kidnapped them now. I requested [the Board] to give me the mother's phone number to resolve this issue with her," she said. The adoptive family fled to a remote village in Hasaka, bringing the children with them for fear that the government would take them away.
Rudaw reached out to the Women's Board but they declined to comment on the subject.
Rashid Haso, the adoptive grandfather of the children, told Rudaw in tears that they cannot give up the children, adding that they have already set up plans for the future of the children and have spent a lot of money on their upbringing.
Reporting by Viviyan Fetah and Tahsin Qassim
