Years after ISIS stole her away to Syria, 17-year-old Layla Eido finally recontacted her family in Iraq several months ago. But a coronavirus lockdown has delayed their long-awaited reunion.
The teenager from Iraq's minority Yazidi community has been stuck in northeast Syria since the Islamic State group's so-called "caliphate" collapsed last year, ending her captivity.
But just when she was on the cusp of reuniting with her family, the novel coronavirus pandemic forced both Iraq and Syria to close their borders, stalling her return.
"The coronavirus is keeping me from seeing my family," she told AFP inside a home where she is staying near the Syrian city of Hasakeh.
"I am counting the days until I see them again."
The soft-spoken girl is among dozens of Yazidi women and girls who were abducted by ISIS from their ancestral Iraqi home of Sinjar in 2014, then enslaved, systematically raped, or married off by force to militants.
Many remain missing, despite hopes they would be found after the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and the US-led coalition declared the ISIS proto-state defeated in March last year.
Layla was forcibly taken from Sinjar aged just 11 years old, and later married off to a 21-year old Iraqi ISIS fighter from Tal Afar – a man she said treated her like a "proper wife".
She lived alongside her husband in several of the group's Syria strongholds until he was killed last year in the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border, where ISIS fighters made their last stand.
Newly widowed, Layla found herself among the hundreds of thousands of people who flooded out of the former ISIS bastion, after months of bombardment.
They were taken to the Kurdish-run Al-Hol camp, now home to thousands of ISIS wives and their children, including many who are still committed to the group's extremist beliefs.
Fearing for her safety, she kept the fact that she was a Yazidi a secret, telling only one person she had met in the destitute settlement – a woman belonging to the same minority.
The militants "used to scare us and tell us the Kurds would kill us if we told them who we really were," said Layla, who later realised this was not true.
When her Yazidi friend from Al-Hol returned to Iraqi Kurdistan last year with help from Kurdish authorities, she managed to track down Layla's family and helped them connect with their long-lost daughter via Facebook.
Layla says she received the first message from her parents five months ago, and now they exchange text messages on a daily basis.
"I speak to my family every day over WhatsApp and we exchange pictures and I get to check up on them," she said.
For around a month, Layla has been staying with a Syrian Yazidi family.
The family head, an official with the Yazidi House organisation, has been helping to organise her reunion with her parents and siblings, who are living in a displacement camp in Iraq's northern Dohuk province.
But it remains to be seen when this repatriation will happen.
"There is nothing we can do," said Ali Kheder, of the Yazidis' Higher Spiritual Council, the group's highest religious body.
"The borders are closed on both sides because of the virus."
"When they reopen, she will return."
Inside a large bedroom, Layla holds a mobile phone, looking at pictures of other Yazidi women who have also been helped to return home.
Like many of them, she said she fears a difficult homecoming.
She no longer fully understands Kurdish, having spoken Turkmen with her husband and Arabic with her friends for years.
In captivity, she was called Zeinab, after the eldest daughter of the Prophet Mohammad, and was forced to practise Islam, although she said she has now returned to the Yazidi faith.
It was not until she left the Al-Hol camp last month that she took off her niqab, a face veil she said she had grown used to.
"I am scared it will be difficult for me to adapt to my family since I left them when I was just little," she said.
"I was far away from them, I lived with strangers and practiced different customs."
But Layla says she is desperate to heal her wounds.
"I want to live a better life, without warplanes, without bombardment and war," she said.
"I want to go back to my family as soon as possible and start a new life."
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
ETFs explained
Exhchange traded funds are bought and sold like shares, but operate as index-tracking funds, passively following their chosen indices, such as the S&P 500, FTSE 100 and the FTSE All World, plus a vast range of smaller exchanges and commodities, such as gold, silver, copper sugar, coffee and oil.
ETFs have zero upfront fees and annual charges as low as 0.07 per cent a year, which means you get to keep more of your returns, as actively managed funds can charge as much as 1.5 per cent a year.
There are thousands to choose from, with the five biggest providers BlackRock’s iShares range, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs, Deutsche Bank AWM X-trackers and Invesco PowerShares.
Ten tax points to be aware of in 2026
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
Businesses should continue preparing for the implementation of e-invoicing in the UAE, with 2026 a preparation and transition period ahead of phased mandatory adoption.
3. More tax audits
Tax authorities are increasingly using data already available across multiple filings to identify audit risks.
4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
5. Greater emphasis on statutory audit
There is a greater need for the accuracy of financial statements. The International Financial Reporting Standards standards need to be strictly adhered to and, as a result, the quality of the audits will need to increase.
6. Further transfer pricing enforcement
Transfer pricing enforcement, which refers to the practice of establishing prices for internal transactions between related entities, is expected to broaden in scope. The UAE will shortly open the possibility to negotiate advance pricing agreements, or essentially rulings for transfer pricing purposes.
7. Limited time periods for audits
Recent amendments also introduce a default five-year limitation period for tax audits and assessments, subject to specific statutory exceptions. While the standard audit and assessment period is five years, this may be extended to up to 15 years in cases involving fraud or tax evasion.
8. Pillar 2 implementation
Many multinational groups will begin to feel the practical effect of the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT), the UAE's implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax under Pillar 2. While the rules apply for financial years starting on or after January 1, 2025, it is 2026 that marks the transition to an operational phase.
9. Reduced compliance obligations for imported goods and services
Businesses that apply the reverse-charge mechanism for VAT purposes in the UAE may benefit from reduced compliance obligations.
10. Substance and CbC reporting focus
Tax authorities are expected to continue strengthening the enforcement of economic substance and Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting frameworks. In the UAE, these regimes are increasingly being used as risk-assessment tools, providing tax authorities with a comprehensive view of multinational groups’ global footprints and enabling them to assess whether profits are aligned with real economic activity.
Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
The Settlers
Director: Louis Theroux
Starring: Daniella Weiss, Ari Abramowitz
Rating: 5/5
