Latest news with #NadiaMurad
Rudaw Net
5 days ago
- Politics
- Rudaw Net
Eighth batch of Yazidi remains from ISIS genocide laid to rest in Shingal
Also in Iraq Iraq's water crisis spurs calls to block Turkish companies Baghdad nearing oil deal with Erbil, negotiating new export agreement with Ankara Dozens of Arbaeen pilgrims killed, injured in southern Iraq accident Iraq's electricity back online after nationwide outage A+ A- ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The remains of 22 Yazidis killed during the 2014 Islamic State (ISIS) assault on their ancestral homeland of Shingal (Sinjar) were laid to rest on Wednesday. This marks the eighth batch of remains returned from mass graves, bringing the total number of reinterred Yazidi victims to 318. The remains were exhumed from mass graves in Shingal and surrounding areas, then identified through extensive DNA testing in Baghdad before being returned to their hometown. Colonel Shaker Mahmoud, an officer with the Directorate of Investigation and Evidence Collection in Duhok, told Rudaw, 'Since 2018, more than 760 sets of remains from Shingal have been sent to Baghdad for DNA testing. Seven batches have been identified and returned so far, and this is the eighth.' Mahmoud added that the victims buried Wednesday were primarily from the villages of Kojo, Hardan, Tal Qasab, and Tal Banat, located south of Shingal. 'The remains arrived yesterday at the Forensic Medicine Department in Mosul [Nineveh] and will be buried in Shingal,' he confirmed. In June 2014, ISIS seized large parts of northern and western Iraq. By August, the group launched a brutal campaign against the Yazidi community in Shingal, killing an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Yazidi men and older women, and abducting 6,000 to 7,000 women and girls for sexual slavery and human trafficking. The United Nations officially recognized the campaign against the Yazidis as a genocide. Among those buried on Wednesday were two brothers of renowned human rights activist and ISIS survivor Nadia Murad. After escaping captivity - where she endured sexual violence and lost several family members - Murad became a powerful advocate for Yazidi genocide and sexual violence victims. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for her efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Nadia Murad, renowned human rights activist and survivor of the Yazidi genocide, mourns her two brothers whose remains were returned Wednesday to the Yazidi ancestral homeland of Shingal (Sinjar), more than a decade after they were killed by the Islamic State (ISIS). — Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) August 13, 2025 Ahmed Qusay, head of Iraq's Mass Graves Excavation Team, said the search for more victims continues. 'Our teams are still searching for mass graves in Shingal,' he told Rudaw. 'So far, we have opened 62 mass graves, with 30 more awaiting excavation.' Qusay explained that 600 remains have been recovered from the graves already opened. 'Out of those, 250 were identified through DNA testing and handed over to their families,' he said. During the ISIS attack on Shingal, around 400,000 Yazidis were forced to flee, with most seeking refuge in the Kurdistan Region. Although Iraq declared full liberation from ISIS in 2017, approximately 21,000 Yazidi families remain displaced, mainly in camps in the Region's northern Duhok province. Their return is hindered by ongoing security concerns and the presence of various armed groups in Shingal. As of early August, around 2,590 Yazidis remain missing, according to the Office of Rescuing Abducted Yazidis. Hussein Qaidi, head of the office affiliated with Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani, told Rudaw that most kidnapped Yazidis are believed to be held in Syria, many in camps housing suspected ISIS affiliates. Since its establishment, the office has succeeded in rescuing 3,590 Yazidis from ISIS captivity, Qaidi said, but stressed the crisis is far from over. On the 11th anniversary of the Yazidi genocide, marked in early August, President Barzani pledged to continue efforts 'until the last Yazidi abductee is returned.'
France 24
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- France 24
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad: 'I never wanted to be an activist'
A winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize has spoken to FRANCE 24 about how she wanted to be a makeup artist in her small village in northern Iraq before her life was nearly destroyed by the Islamic State group. In 2014, when Nadia Murad was just 21 years old, IS group terrorists attacked her community, killing hundreds of people, including her mother and six of her nine brothers. Along with nearly 7,000 other Yazidi women and children, she was abducted and like many of them was raped, beaten and tortured for several months. Now, though, she is a powerful voice for all survivors of genocide and sexual violence. Her story is documented in her book "The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State". She spoke to us in Perspective.
Express Tribune
07-03-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Acting together to defend and promote women's rights
Listen to article In 2019, France adopted a "feminist diplomacy strategy" that places gender equality and the rights of women and girls among the top priorities of its foreign policy. France's feminist diplomacy is based on the principle of equal rights – a fundamental principle of the French Republic, founded on the motto: 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity'. Our feminist diplomacy is part of our longstanding commitment to fundamental freedoms and the universality of human rights. Announced on this International Women's Day, France's new international strategy on gender equality for the next five years will mobilise our diplomatic action globally. Bilaterally, France has set itself the ambitious goal of having 75% of its official development assistance include gender equality content. At the multilateral level, France advocates the systematic consideration of gender equality in all forums: at the UN, the G7, the G20, the EU and other European organisations. At the UN, France is a leading country within the Commission on the Status of Women and supports ardently UN agencies such as UN Women and the United Nations Population Fund. Gender equality and the rights of women and girls are indeed cross-cutting issues that must be promoted and defended in all areas: peace and security, climate and environment, development, democratic governance, human rights, humanitarian action, economic, financial and commercial issues, digital, culture, education, health, and food security. In this regard, education is a priority area and our action aims to promote equality in and through education in order to foster the civic and political participation of women, as well as their economic empowerment. Another priority is to defend women's health, including sexual and reproductive rights (SRHR), in order to affirm the absolute right of women to control their own bodies. This imperative led France to include the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy in its Constitution, on 8 March, 2024. Because women are particularly vulnerable victims in conflict situations but also because they play a key role in conflict prevention, they must benefit from specific support. This is why, over the past five years, France has contributed 14.2 million euros to the Global Fund for Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence founded by Nobel Peace Prize winners Nadia Murad and Dr Denis Mukwege. With 4.5 million euros in 2024, France is also supporting the Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF), the largest United Nations fund dedicated to feminist organisations in crisis contexts. We will also strengthen the French Support Fund for Feminist Organizations. Since its creation in 2020, this fund has allocated 254 million euros to 1,400 associations in more than 73 countries, and has made France a leading country in funding feminist organisations. International mobilisation on this major issue must be maintained. To this end, France will host this year the 4th Ministerial Shaping Feminist Foreign Policy Conference. After Germany (2022), the Netherlands (2023) and Mexico (2024), the conference in France will mark the commitment of a growing number of governments to feminist diplomacy and will be a unique opportunity to bring together states and civil society on women's rights. To move forward together on this issue which concerns half of humanity, we can rely on the essential international conventions that France and Pakistan have ratified, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which are among the 27 international conventions that countries benefiting from the GSP+ agreement with the European Union, including Pakistan, have committed to implementing. France's engagement to cooperate with Pakistan to promote women's rights has been expressed concretely through numerous actions. Following the deadly floods in the summer of 2022, the French Government provided exceptional support of 1 million euros to the actions of the World Food Program dedicated to pregnant and lactating women and, locally, the French Embassy provided financial support to the programme of the French NGO Secours Islamique (Islamic Relief) to support the economic activity of women in the district of Tharparkar (Sindh). Furthermore, in cooperation with the Aga Khan Development Network, UNDP, UN Women, the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, the Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change and with the support of the Pakistani Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination, the French Embassy has been organising the 'Gender and Climate Award' for the past three years. This award provides financial support to women involved in the fight against climate change in Pakistan to develop their projects. The French Embassy also supports the actions of Pakistani civil society, such as those of Ms Mary GIL's Center for Law and Justice, which aim to empower young girls from families of garbage collectors through education. Other initiatives contribute to promoting the role of women in our societies, like the Women International Film Festival in Islamabad, which the French Embassy has supported since 2022. We have also promoted the CSR actions of four French companies in Pakistan – L'Oréal, Ipsos, Servier and Schneider – aimed at increasing the empowerment of women. Together with our Pakistani partners, we are happy and proud to continue developing these projects and supporting these actions to pursue our common goals in promoting women's rights, freedom and dignity.
