‘Daesh must be destroyed’
Sarah Montague of BBC’s Hard Talk spoke to Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman held as a sex slave in Iraq. This is an edited transcript
What happened when Islamic State (IS) came into the village?
On August 3, 2014 Daesh (Islamic State) attacked the Yazidis in Sinjar. They killed the men and took the women and girls. Some Yazidis fled to Mount Sinjar as it was close to their villages. That day 3 000 people were massacred. Our village was far from the mount, we were besieged and could not escape. For a few days they surrounded the village. We tried to get help by phone and other means. We knew something dreadful was about to happen. No help came, not from inside Iraq or elsewhere.
After a few days Daesh corralled us at the high school – men, women and children. They gave us a choice: convert to Islam or die.
Later they separated the men, about 700 of them. They took them to the edge of the village and started shooting them. They took valuables such as earrings and necklaces from the women and children.
You have a big family – how many
of your brothers did they take?
They took nine. Six were killed with the other men, three were wounded but managed to escape. They were all married.
They killed your mother as well?
They took boys, those over 4 years old, to training camps. The girls, those over 9 years old, were taken, and 80 or so women, all over 45, including my mother were taken. Some said they were killed, others said not. Two months ago, when part of Sinjar was liberated, a mass grave containing their bodies was discovered. Eighteen members of my family have been killed or are missing.
What happened when they took you and the other women – where did they take you and what did they do to you?
They divided us into groups. There were 150 girls, including me and three of my younger nieces. That night they took us by bus to Mosul (in northern Iraq). On the journey they were touching our breasts and rub- bing their beards in our faces. We didn’t know whether they were going to kill us or what they were going to do to us. But we knew nothing good was going to happen as they had already killed men and old ladies and had abducted children.
When you got to Mosul, what happened then?
That night they took us to their headquarters. It was a big place. There were many young girls, women and children, all Yazidi. They had been abducted from other villages. I asked an old lady what had happened to the women since they had been abducted. She told me she was one of 400 brought to the headquarters yesterday. She told me every hour Daesh men came and chose some girls. They took them, raped them and brought them back. She told me some girls were sold. She went on to say that the same thing would happen to us. At that moment I realised what was going to happen to us. Then what happened?
The next evening a group of Daesh militants arrived. Each fighter picked one of us for himself. Some of the girls were younger than me… 10 years old. The girls resisted but were forced to go. The younger girls were clinging to the older girls. One, the same age as my niece, was crying and clinging to me. We all knew what the Daesh militants were after. The man who selected me was very fat, he grabbed me and took me away from my nieces down stairs. As another militant passed I grabbed him and pleaded for him to take me instead. The other man told the fat man he was taking me for himself.
You went with the man you thought might be easier for you,
a smaller man rather than the big man, what did he do?
I knew whoever took me would rape me. The skinny man took me to his place. He had bodyguards. He raped me. It was painful. I realised I would have suffered regardless of which man had taken me. I even found myself wishing I had stayed with the fat man as he had also taken one of my nieces. None of the men showed any mercy. All were silent rapists. They wouldn’t keep us for more than a week. Often they would sell us on after a day or even an hour. The things they did to us were terrible. We had never imagined such things could happen to us.
How old were some of the girls?
The girls with me were all under 16. Some of my brothers’ wives were pregnant when we were captured and gave birth in captivity. You were held for three months. In that time did you have any normal conversation with the men who were holding you?
I asked them why they were doing this to us, why they killed our men and were violently raping us? They said: ‘Yazidis are infidels, you are not people of the Book, now you are spoils of war. You deserve this. Yazidis should be destroyed, we tried to destroy you, but some of you ran away. We are doing our duty.’
Did any IS men show compassion?
There are no good men among them. A couple of Yazidi girls met some of the men’s wives – they were just as bad. The first man who took me told me he had a daughter called Sarah, sometimes he talked about her. Most of the men were married, their families seemed to accept what they were doing. I asked to make a call to find out what had happened to my family and hear a familiar voice. He said I could call my nephew for about two minutes on condition I first licked his toe which he had covered in honey. I was prepared to do anything just to hear a familiar voice. You said they told you to convert to Islam, did you think about it?
They forced us to convert, they forced us to say we changed religion. How did you manage to escape?
The first time I was with the first man who raped me. I had tried to run away, although I didn’t believe I would succeed. Daesh militants were everywhere in Mosul.
I tried to escape through a window but was caught by one of the guards. Under their rules, a captured woman becomes a spoil of war. If she is caught trying to escape, she is raped by all the men in that compound. I was gang-raped. They call this “sexual jihad”. Afterwards I couldn’t think of trying to escape again.
The final man lived alone. When he decided to sell me on, he went to get some clothes. He told me to wash and get ready. I managed to leave the compound. I called at a house, a Muslim family with no connection to Daesh lived there. I asked for help. I told them my brother would give them whatever they wanted in return. They gave me an abaya and Islamic ID and took me to the border.
Young people all over the world are attracted by what IS is doing and want to fight for them – what do you say to them?
My message is that they should know we risked our lives to escape. They killed and raped us and did heinous things most people couldn’t imagine. You should know you will be killed or lose your humanity.
Those young men and women should look at what we have had to do to escape and how hard we are working to free our people.
I’ve met members of parliament and world leaders. I’ve said to them what I am saying to you now. I tell them my story and what I’ve been through. The situation is urgent and should be addressed immediately. Millions are waiting for a solution, for Daesh to be destroyed.