7-year old Saadiya Shano, is a Yazidi girl from Shingal, Iraq. In 2014 ISIS captured her with her parents and her 6 siblings; she was only 11 months old. The family was moved from one prison to another until in 2015 Saadiya was separated from her parents and she completely vanished.
But her luck was about to change in 2018 when ISIS began its retreat from Mosul and Saadiya was abandoned at an orphanage. No one knew where she was, all her cousins and extended family believed that she was dead or was being raised by ISIS in Syria or Turkey. Her uncle who was searching for them had lost all hope until he reached out to The Nazarene Fund for help.
Fortunately for Saadiya, when the orphanage began posting pictures of the children in their custody in an attempt to find their families, our team managed to identify one of the children as a possible match following a lead from a local villager who had identified her as Yazidi.
Operatives contacted the uncle who was almost certain that we had found his niece. Since the uncle could not afford the costs, TNF took care of all the procedures including providing DNA kits to confirm family ties. When the tests came out positive, Saadiya was released from the orphanage and reunited with her extended family.
TNF is currently providing housing and all necessities to Saadiya while helping process her immigration application to join 3 of her siblings who were found earlier and relocated to Australia. Our teams are still searching for her parents and the rest of her family who remain missing to this day. #lovethyneighbor#tnf