Nobel Peace Prize winning human rights activist Nadia Murad shared her harrowing story of escape from the clutches of ISIS with Donald Trump in the White House this week, but things quickly took an awkward turn when the seemingly confused – or disinterested – president asked her where her family was, despite having just been told twice that they’d been murdered by the Islamic State.
During her moving monologue on Wednesday, Murad stood beside a seated Trump urging him to help her Yazidi community return home to Iraq by intervening in the conflict between Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting over the land left behind in ISIS’ collapse.
Murad – persevering through having to talk mostly to the back of the president’s head – told Trump o the day ISIS attacked her village, killing her mother and all of her brothers, before taking her and the other women in her family as prisoners.
‘Now there’s no ISIS, but we cannot go back [home] because the Kurdish government and the Iraqi government, they are fighting each other [over] who will control my area,’ Murad told the president. ‘They killed my mom, my six brothers.’
Cutting her off mid-sentence, Trump interjects, asking, ‘Where are they now?’
Nobel Peace Prize winning human rights activist Nadia Murad shared her harrowing story of escape from the clutches of ISIS with Donald Trump in the White House this week, but things quickly took an awkward turn when the seemingly confused – or disinterested – president asked her where her family was, despite having just been told twice that they’d been murdered by the Islamic State
Taken aback by the question, Murad blinks hard and pauses for a moment, before clarifying, ‘They killed them. They are in the mass graves in Sinjar and I’m fighting just to live. Please do something.’
‘I know the area you’re talking about very well,’ Trump responded.
Murad was one of 27 survivors of religious persecution who met with Trump at the White House on Wednesday in a promotion of an international effort to protect religious freedoms. Other speakers included a Jewish Holocaust survivor, a Tibetan from China and a Rohingya Muslim from Myanmar.
Similarly to thousands of other Yazidi women, Murad was brutally raped and between by ISIS’ terrorist soldiers before she managed to escape to Germany where she now lives.
She became the first woman from Iraq to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her activism in speaking out against abuse and sexual violence. Murad now travels around the world speaking of how sex trafficking is used as a weapon during wars.
As she backed away from the president, he told her he was going to look into the Kurdish and Iraqi conflict ‘very strongly’, before questioning her on her Nobel Prize.
Murad – persevering through having to talk mostly to the back of the president’s head after his attention seemingly waned – told Trump on the day ISIS attacked her village, killing her mother and all of her brothers, before taking her and the other women in her family as prisoners
‘So they gave you the Nobel Prize? That’s incredible,’ He told her. ‘They gave it to you for what reason?’
A bemused Murad responds, ‘For what reason? After all that has happened to me, I didn’t give up. I make it clear to everyone that ISIS raped thousands of Yazidi women.’
Murad added that she was the first woman to escape ISIS and publicly speak out about the horrors she faced during her time in captivity.
‘Oh really? It’s the first time,’ and upbeat Trump responds. ‘So you escaped?’
Murad retorted that though she may have escaped ISIS, she is still not free.
‘If I cannot go to my home and live in a safe place and get my dignity back, this is not about ISIS,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘It’s about I’m in danger. My people cannot go back.’
Similarly to thousands of other Yazidi women, Murad was brutally raped and between by ISIS’ terrorist soldiers before she managed to escape to Germany where she now lives. She became the first woman from Iraq to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her activism in speaking out against abuse and sexual violence
‘So they gave you the Nobel Prize? That’s incredible,’ Trump told her. ‘They gave it to you for what reason?’ A bemused Murad responds, ‘For what reason? After all that has happened to me, I didn’t give up. I make it clear to everyone that ISIS raped thousands of Yazidi women.’