After 8 years, Yazidi sisters in Winnipeg celebrate reunion with brother who was captured by ISIS

After spending years pleading with the federal government to expedite their brother's application to come to Canada, Layla and Amal Alhussein have finally reunited with their 13-year-old brother, Ayad.

The Yazidi family embraced Thursday on the "hug rug" that greets people arriving at the Winnipeg airport, with Layla and Amal taking turns hugging their brother and giving him flowers to welcome him to his new home.

"It still feels like a dream. It doesn't really feel real yet," Ayad, 13, said upon his arrival.

The last time Layla and Amal saw their brother was in Iraq, where their entire family was captured by ISIS in August 2014. 

The sisters came to Canada in 2018 as refugees through the federal government's 2017 commitment to settle 1,200 Yazidi refugees and ISIS survivors. 

Yazidis, a religious minority based mainly in northern Iraq, were persecuted by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, who considered them heretics. In 2016, a United Nations report declared that the slaughter, sexual slavery, indoctrination and other crimes committed against the 400,000 Yazidi amounted to genocide.

When they arrived in Canada, Layla and Amal thought most of their other family members — including Ayad — were dead, except for one sister who stayed behind in a refugee camp in Iraq.

It wasn't until 2020 that they learned through that sister that Ayad, then 10 years old, was alive and living in the refugee camp. He had been rescued after five years in ISIS captivity.

Since then, Layla and Amal had been desperately trying to expedite his approval to come to Canada through the federal government's one-year window program, which allows a family member to come to the country as a dependent of a permanent resident who has arrived as a refugee within the past year. 

Layla previously told CBC News she had filed an application in January 2020 to sponsor Ayad to come to Canada, but said she didn't hear from the government after that.

Earlier this year, the federal immigration department told CBC it is committed to reuniting families, but could not offer a timeline for processing this type of application.

Nafiya Naso, who works with the Canadian Yazidi Association, said shortly after CBC published a story in early June about Ayad and his sisters, the family was contacted by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Ayad's visa was approved that month.

A bittersweet moment

After Layla and Amal greeted their brother on Thursday, other members from the Yazidi community in Winnipeg took turns welcoming him to the city. Volunteers from Yazidi-serving organizations, like Operation Ezra and the Canadian Yazidi Association, were also at the airport.

Amal said she'd be cooking traditional dishes Thursday night in celebration of her brother's arrival, which Ayad said he was looking forward to.

"I'm excited to eat a home-cooked meal by my sisters," he said.

Although Layla and Amal are celebrating their reunion with Ayad, it's a bittersweet moment. The family still doesn't know what happened to their parents or four other siblings, whom they haven't seen since 2014.

Michel Aziza, the co-founder and chair of Operation Ezra, said it's nearly impossible for people to settle in new countries and transition into a life of normalcy when their family members are still missing.

He hopes Canadians keep advocating for the government to reunite more Yazidi families with their relatives who are still in refugee camps. 

He encourages people in Canada to reach out to their members of Parliament, and keep pressing the federal immigration department to process family reunification applications.

"Ayad's sisters are the example of that. For [two] years, they have constantly been knocking on doors," said Aziza.

"Never give up."