Captured by Islamic State, Amera began writing letters to her lost brother: I wrote because I was scared, but also because I have hope'

"Amera is one of more than 6,000 Yazidi women and children kidnapped and enslaved by IS. More than a decade after IS began their genocidal campaign against the Yazidis—killing and displacing thousands of the religious minority—she is fighting for the estimated more than 2,700 still missing."

"The book, For Ali, For Us All: Messages From Captivity, under the pen name Amera Ali, comprises notes and letters written during her time in captivity. It's illustrated by her cousin, Suad Smo, who was held captive for almost three years. It chronicles her kidnapping—alongside her mother, three sisters and brother—and being ferried between locations as captives on buses with drawn curtains."

"The handwritten letters, translated from Kurmanji to English, began as secret messages to Ali, in the hope their discovery would lead him to her. She wrote on pens and paper found in a classroom desk at a school in Tal Afar, where she was imprisoned alongside 70 other Yazidi women and children."

In August 2014, IS militants separated Amera from her brother Ali during an assault on their Yazidi village in Sinjar, Iraq. She was among over 6,000 Yazidi women and children kidnapped and enslaved by IS. After eight months in captivity, including imprisonment in Tal Afar with 70 other Yazidi women and children, Amera escaped with her family. Now 22, she published a memoir titled For Ali, For Us All: Messages From Captivity, comprising handwritten letters and notes written secretly during her imprisonment. Illustrated by her cousin Suad Smo, also a long-term captive, the book chronicles her kidnapping, the sexual violence perpetrated by IS, and their escape. Amera continues fighting for the estimated 2,700 Yazidis still missing from the genocidal campaign that killed and displaced thousands.

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