Sakharov Prize: Nadia Murad tells EU Parliament about violence and slavery. “But strength comes from God”

(Strasbourg) “Today my heart is filled with joy because you have decided to support us and we are no longer alone”. Nadia Murad, who was awarded the 2016 Sakharov Prize together with her fellow countrywoman Lamiya Aji Bashar, takes the floor at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. As she receives the Prize for Freedom of Thought and Human Rights, she narrates her story, the atrocities she was subject to, the story of destroyed families and of a “people who used to live in peace, with people of other religions, and was dispersed” by IS. “Daesh wanted to disperse us, to end our desire to live. Daesh is against life. Religious radicalisation and terrorism alike are against humanity”. Nadia’s personal account is interspersed with insights into the situation in the Middle East. “In my family, in my religious community – she explains – I learned to respect people, to pray for peace among peoples. We learned it from our mothers who were slaughtered by IS. There are half a million Yazidis without a land today: there is a need to create a safe zone where they can live, otherwise they will all become refugees and flock to Europe”. The biography of young Murad – 21, while her friend Lamiya Aji Bashar is 18 – is made up of suffering, mourning, deportation, and enslavement, but she does not give up: “Strength comes from God”, she says, while asking for an intervention to bring peace to her homeland.