‘I Did Not Convert. I Did Not Say Prayers.’

LALISH, Iraq — Samira Benav and her mother were overwhelmed with emotions as they hugged Khero, Samira’s older brother, in a building by the side of the complex of stone buildings with conical roofs that house the shrines of Yazidi saints. Samira’s elderly mother, Dayke Khero, who is paralyzed from the waist down, could not get up for a proper hug as the three reunited after five months.

Samira, 25, who is mentally disabled, and Dayke Khero were part of a group of 196 Yazidis suddenly released by the Islamic State on Jan. 17. Though the world’s attention has waned from the plight of the Yazidis since their siege on Mount Sinjar last August helped catalyze U.S. airstrikes, hundreds of members of the religious minority group are believed to still be held hostage. The released group was mostly comprised of the elderly, mentally and physically disabled, and a few ill boys. The jihadis gave neither advance warning nor explanation for the timing of their release.

Although finally set free, the men and women in the hall in Lalish Temple’s guesthouse hardly look happy, except for occasional expressions of joy when reunited with family members. Their faces are pale, their bodies frail. Some have developed skin diseases with horrifying ulcers during their nearly six months in captivity. They were taken prisoners in early August when the Islamic State’s fighters invaded their towns and villages in the Sinjar area in Iraq’s northwestern Nineveh province in a shocking and effective offensive that began in June.

“We had to flee when we heard they were coming toward us,” said Khero, Samira’s 35-year-old brother, a farmer who lived in Diholan, a Yazidi town of around 10,000 people about an hour north of Mount Sinjar by car. “I took my wife and three children and left behind my mother and sister because I thought the Islamic State will not harm them.”

Samira said Islamic State militants in a convoy of machine-gun-mounted trucks took her and her mother away on Aug. 3. “When they took us, they tore apart my clothes. Took our money, which was very little,” said Samira. “Many of us were sick but they would not care for us. The food was very bad. We could hardly eat it. If you protested about something they would insult you or beat you.”

Their captors added Samira and her mother to a larger group of Yazidi prisoners, who were shepherded from one place to another across jihadi-controlled territory, including Kucho, a village near Sinjar, where the Islamic State reportedly massacred dozens of Yazidi men in August after they refused to convert to Islam. Other destinations included the town of Talafar, near the Syrian border, and Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which has become the Islamic State’s stronghold in the country.

The Islamic State has earned a reputation for brutality. In a report released late last year, Amnesty International said the jihadi group had tortured and raped many Yazidi women and girls and alleged the group’s atrocities amounted to “war crimes and crimes against humanity.” The United Nations estimates that the Islamic State had abducted as many as 2,500 Yazidis, mostly women and children, by the end of last August.

The bulk of the group’s wrath has been directed at religious minorities. As followers of the ancient Mesopotamian religion known as Yazidism, or Ezdayeti in Kurdish, Yazidis have particularly suffered. Many of their men were massacred, women taken as wives or sex slaves, and their properties looted. The Islamic State has emphatically labeled Yazidis, who worship a sun god, as infidels in its propaganda and has taken it upon itself to convert the imperiled minority to Islam.

“They told us you must convert, you must become Muslim,” said Dayke Khero, Samira’s mother as she lay on a mattress in the Lalish guesthouse. “I did not convert. I did not say prayers.” Many men and boys, however, say they attended group prayers out of fear that they might be killed if they didn’t.

The last stop on these Yazidis’ five-month ordeal was a large wedding hall turned into a stinking holding camp in Mosul. They huddled on the floor, with only thin sheets to stave off the chilly nights. A cold shower was allowed only every couple of weeks. Insults and abuse became a daily routine.

Why these 196 captives were released now is unclear. Some say their captors told them that the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had decided to pardon them. Others say it was more practical. “The major reason these people were released is because they are all in bad health conditions and need care. They each need someone to take care of them and so they were a burden,” said Baba Chawish, a Yazidi religious leader who is in charge of Lalish temple. “We are not sure, but we have heard that al-Baghdadi has decided to release more Yazidis group by group.”

On Jan. 17, the 196 were ordered onto buses, which then dropped them at an outpost manned by Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the Riyadh district of Kirkuk province in northern Iraq. After nearly six months, they were out of jihadis’ hands — but returning to Kurdistan presents its own challenges.

The released Yazidis do not have a place they can call home at the moment. Many of the towns and villages that they come from are still under the Islamic State’s control. Those towns retaken by Kurdish forces in recent weeks are not yet completely secured. Among the released Yazidis, many will join family members and relatives in the several refugee camps that now dot the Kurdish countryside.

The Yazidis’ traumatic experience has created mistrust between them and their former Sunni neighbors and imperiled their sense of safety. Salah Khidir, a Yazidi man who estimates he is around 60 years old and was just released by the Islamic State remembers the day the jihadi militants stormed his town. On Aug. 3, Salah’s neighbors, almost all Sunni Arabs, were the first to turn on his family. He was a major cattle owner in the area, making his capture by the militants a lucrative opportunity.

Salah and other Yazidis have had a hard time understanding why their longtime neighbors — mostly Sunni Arabs but also some Kurds — would help hand them over to the Islamic State. Yazidis are historically a largely reclusive group, living in remote desert regions and choosing isolation to avoid conflict with those around them — that is, until the Islamic State came knocking at their doors. Now, with the jihadis still far from contained, this small community in Iraq has much to fear. “We cannot go back without a solid international protection,” said Salah. That may be a long time coming, but at least for now some of them are free.