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“It was a really hard life,” she said. “When I had a phone, I started to call my mom and I said to her that I want to go home.”

Nevalainen, who was in foster care, was pregnant when she left Sweden. She is said to have told her biological parents that she was going to Stockholm for a few days, only to then travel to Iraq overland via Bulgaria and Turkey.

Counter-Terrorism Forces (CTD) rescued a young Swedish National, Ms Marlin Stivani Nivarlain, from #ISIL near Mosul. https://t.co/WRBM0tRK0Y —

KR Security Council (@KRSCPress) February 23, 2016

Shortly after arriving in Iraq, she rang her parents to say that there had bombing in the area where she was living, and that she feared she might die. “If I do not call back, it means I’m dead,” she told them, according to Swedish media.

There were conflicting accounts Tuesday of how she came to be freed. Kurdish security officials said that their special forces had sneaked into Mosul and freed Nevalainen without a shot being fired.

Other reports said that she was originally freed from ISIL custody in October, but either went back to the group of her own accord or was kept a prisoner by a Kurdish militia that had secured her release.

Kurdo Baksi, a Swedish journalist with contacts in the region, claimed that Nevalainen had been kidnapped by another Kurdish faction during the raid on an ISIL camp last autumn.

“It’s a group near Mosul which has specialized in murdering Islamic State soldiers, but at the same time they carry out kidnappings and want to be paid,” he said.

Kurdish officials said that arrangements were now being made for Nevalainen to be returned to Sweden.

The fate of her child, born in the autumn, is unknown.

With a file from National Post staff