Nadia Murad: Yezidi mothers, families should decide fate of ISIS children
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Yezidi survivor and Nobel laureate Nadia Murad issued a video statement on Sunday addressing the Yezidi Spiritual Council decision not to accept children born from rape by Islamic State (ISIS) militants.
The Spiritual Council made the clarification on Saturday, days after it implied “all” survivors would be taken in.
In a statement published Saturday, the council said coverage of its earlier statement was “distorting the truth”.
“About the decision to accept the female survivors and children, we did not mean the children born as a result of rape at all, but those who were born from Yezidi parents and were kidnapped during the invasion of Sinjar [Shingal] by Daesh on August 3, 2014,” the council said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
The Yezidi faith does not accept marriage and conception between Yezidis and non-Yezidis, nor does it allow conversion.
It appears the Spiritual Council made the U-turn after Yezidi political parties and others within the community objected.
Responding to the development, Murad said children born of ISIS rape are an “international and humanitarian” matter.
“I know that this is a difficult decision. This is something new and hard for our nation,” Murad said in the video posted to her Facebook page late Sunday.
“This is a hard and historic decision, but our case does not only concern us.”
The birth of children fathered by ISIS fighters was out of the Yezidi women’s control, she said.
“The mothers of these children have approached the UN, organizations and governments. Many of them have said that their children have been rejected,” Murad said.
“I was in contact with many women and they told me they have been rescued [from ISIS] but are living in camps, mountains, and [foreign] countries, afraid to return as they have been told that their children will not be accepted.”
“I believe this should be determined by the mothers of the children and their families rather than the fact that each of us say: ‘No, they should not bring [their children]’ while other say ‘They should bring [them]’.”
Murad said the Yezidis and the international community must not lose sight of greater issues afflicting the persecuted minority group.
“Only this morning three of our [Yezidi] brothers were exhumed from a mass grave in Kocho. I have not broken the news to you due to talking with people about these children,” Murad said.
Following years of delay, a UN team recently began exhuming mass grave sites in the Shingal village of Kocho.
Murad called on Yezidis to find a humanitarian solution “so that we can know what to tell people and return to our greater issues such as Shingal, its reconstruction, mass graves, and the thousands of missing people.”
Thousands of Yezidi men and elderly people were slaughtered by ISIS militants and buried in mass graves during the 2014 genocide. Women and children were abducted and sold into slavery – many facing years of sexual violence.
Of 6,417 Yezidis kidnapped by ISIS, the fate of 2,992 remains unclear, according to Yezidi Affairs Office from the KRG Ministry Religion and Endowment.