These children escaped from Islamic State captivity, but there is no joy in their return home

TALL AFAR, Iraq - The beat-up Hyundai station wagon turned onto the street, a signal that the party could begin. The women gathered at the door, ululating as children spilled past them to lob candy at the three boys who slowly disembarked from the vehicle.

For a moment, the boys - 11-year-old Ali Aoun and his two brothers, Khalil, 9, and Ahmad, 7 - stood by the car, looking dazed as relative after relative came to kiss their shaved heads.

Hours earlier, the three had boarded a bus along with 14 other children for the journey from eastern Syria to their families across the border in Iraq. It had been the last stop in a five-year ordeal.

It was 2014 when Islamic State mounted its genocidal rampage against the religious minorities who had long made