Emma Tsurkov, whose sister, Elizabeth, has been held hostage by a Shia militia in Iraq since 2023, took to social media on Wednesday to call out the Iraqi government and Biden administration's inaction and express hope for the new US administration.
"It's been 687 days since my sister Elizabeth, a Princeton student, was kidnapped in Baghdad. 687 days of incompetence and inaction by the Iraqi PM," Tsurkov wrote.
She added: "The Biden administration kept showering the corrupt Iraqi officials with hundreds of millions of our taxpayer dollars with no accountability. Thank God a tough leader with a backbone of steel is in the White House and is done playing games. Mr. President, only you can bring my sister home!"
Tsurkov holds both Israeli and Russian citizenship and resided in the US while working on her doctorate at Princeton University. She went missing in Baghdad in mid-2023 and it was later revealed that she was abducted by an Iranian-backed Shia militia, assumed to be the Kata'ib Hezbollah organization.
Last month, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told Axios the researcher is alive. The minister stressed that Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani is working for her release.