Nadia Murad: Yazidi survivor kept as Isis sex slave describes moment her family were massacred

'A year and a half has passed and the genocide against the Yazidis is continuous. We die every day because we see the world silent in the face of our plight'

Samuel Osborne
Monday 15 February 2016 17:48 GMT
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Nadia Murad is in the UK campaigning to build solidarity with victims of violence in Iraq
Nadia Murad is in the UK campaigning to build solidarity with victims of violence in Iraq

A Yazidi woman who was kept as a sex slave for three months by Isis has described the moment her family was massacred.

Nadia Murad, 21, is in the UK campaigning to build solidarity with victims of violence in Iraq and unite the world against Isis.

Speaking at Trade Union Congress House in central London, she described how Isis fighters killed six of her brothers and her mother:

"When I speak I didn't speak just on my behalf, but on behalf of all the women and children affected in the war zone," she said, according to The Mirror.

"Two months have passed since I have been campaigning and people have been happy, not just Yazidis, about this message.

"About 5,800 Yazidi women and children were captured by the so-called Islamic State. They have killed many people in Iraq and Syria and displaced millions.

Young Yazidi girl gives powerful speech at UN

"For us, the Yazidis, they killed the men and took the women and children.

"They were committing all kinds; murder, rape and displacing people by force in the name of Islam.

"Many people may think my story is difficult, but many more had more difficult than mine.

"They killed six of my brothers, but there are families that have lost 10 brothers."

Ms Murad went on to say there are still around 3,400 women in the hands of Isis.

She said she wants to see more help given to Yazidis living in refugee camps, and an investigation into whether Isis has committed genocide against the Yazidi people.

Considered infidels by Isis, many Yazidi women are abducted and sold as sex slaves.

Several mass graves, containing the bodies of more than 100 women, were found in Ms Murad's hometown of Sinjar.

After the Sinjar siege last year many Yazidis fled to Kurdistan

"A year and a half has passed and the genocide against the Yazidis is continuous. We die every day because we see the world silent in the face of our plight," she added.

"My mother saw them killing my brothers and then they took my mother and killed her.

"I was already orphaned as I didn't have a father, all I had in the war was my mother.

"But when they took me to Mosul and raped me, I forgot my mother and brothers. Because what they were doing to the women was more difficult than death.

"Imagine until now, for more than a year and a half, girls as young as nine are being rented and sold out [for sex]."

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