Niece of Yezidi Goodwill ambassador Nadia Murad killed in Mosul

15-07-2017
Rudaw
Tags: Nadia Murad Yezidi genocide Yezidis Kocho ISIS Mosul Mosul offensive
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The niece of the UN Goodwill Ambassador and ISIS survivor Nadia Murad has been killed in Mosul, she said in a statement late Friday night, adding that no words could express the family’s sadness.

“I share with you more sad news,” Murad said,  “Nsreen, a sister and a soulmate, my beautiful [sic] neice was killed in Mosul last week after 3 years under ISIS captivity.”

Murad said that her niece was 16 when she was taken captive by ISIS.

“Abbas a terrorist from Mosul, ugly, he was 51 yrs old, he took her for himself, enslaved her, and tortured her,” Murad said of her niece’s captivity.

Nsreen’s sister, Kathreen, died last year as she tried to escape from the ISIS-held areas towards the Peshmerga lines. She died in a landmine explosion, Saeed Murad, her uncle told Rudaw Friday.
 
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidre al-Abadi declared Mosul liberated from the ISIS group after nearly nine months of fighting. 

Nadia was appointed the UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking last year, being the first survivor of atrocity named to the post.

She returned to her hometown of Kocho in June after it was liberated in late May by the mainly Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi forces, supported by some local Yezidi fighters. 

The small farming village of Kocho, some 18 kilometers south of Shingal was overrun by ISIS on August 3, 2014. Nadia was taken captive along with her two sisters. Six of her nine brothers were killed in Kocho. Her mother was also killed by the extremist group.

Kocho has since become a symbol for the Yezidi genocide committed by ISIS.

While visiting her village, Nadia recalled that an ISIS leader had called them to convert to Islam and abandon their religion, but they had refused, she said. “Now the village is surrounded by mass graves.”

"What remains of the village is the bones of our brothers, our fathers, and mothers. Even in our house there is nothing left from my mother that I can take with me. But this has been left from my elder brother, whom we considered like a father. Only this is left,” she said, holding the military uniform of her brother.” 

As of early July, figures from the Kurdistan Region shows that 3,050 people had been rescued from ISIS captivity since August 2014, of whom 1,094 are women and 334 are men, and 1,622 children from both genders. 

An earlier figure by the Kurdish office in charge of the Yezidi affairs released in late April put the number of rescued men at 336.

The April figures stated that 3,400 more Yezidis were still believed to be under ISIS captivity.

 

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