"We want our honor and dignity returned, our people go back home,” Murad told Rudaw on the sidelines of a ceremony held to mark the massacre Saturday, citing lack of a local government in Shingal. “It has been five years since our people have been only two hours far from Shingal, yet they cannot return home.”
Murad also spoke about the need for Shingal’s disputed status to be resolved to pave the way for Yezidis to return there at the event in Hamburg, Germany. Both Erbil and Baghdad claim the city.
"The KRG and the Iraqi governments must find a political solution for Shingal,” she said. “We understand that both sides work in all the other places, except for Shingal. We want them at least once, to extend work for Shingal.”
The Islamic State (ISIS) took control of Shingal in August 2014, killing and enslaving thousands of Yezidis in the process. The city was liberated in 2015, but political conflicts, poor living conditions and security concerns have prevented many from returning, though some have since gone back.
Resettlement has been slow in other parts of Iraq liberated from ISIS rule as well, but Murad said other areas have more returnees than Shingal.
"The people of Mosul have returned home, the people of Tal Afar have returned home, the same for Bashik and other areas, but Yezidis cannot," she said adding the existence of multiple of groups in the region has hindered the return of their people home.
Lamia Haji Bashar, another Yezidi human rights activist who was jointly awarded the Sakharov Prize with Murad in 2016, called on the international community to help "reconstruct Shingal and recognize our case as genocide."
"We want our people to return our lands and homes," Bashar told Rudaw at the conference. "We are urging for an international court to try the Daesh criminals."
Murad spoke to Iraqi and Kurdish leaders in December about the issues facing Yezidis. Their community has around 15,000 armed men who could be reorganized as an official force to be either associated with Iraq or the Kurdistan Region in order for them "protect our safety,” according to her.
Murad praised the Kurdistan Region parliament for recognizing August 3 as the commemoration of the 2014 genocide, though she also said “I wish this decision was made much earlier than that.”
Murad, 25, was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace in Oslo on December 10. She was abducted by ISIS in her village of Kocho near Shingal in the summer of 2014 and held captive for weeks before she escaped to the Kurdistan Region. After escaping and finding refuge in Germany, she went on to become a world recognized campaigner for women's rights.
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