An Iraqi refugee who escaped genocide by Isis and was sponsored to come to America by George and Amal Clooney is striving for a “normal student life” despite old traumas and new-found fame.

Hazim Avdal, 23, is now a computer studies major at the University of Chicago. But in 2014 he and his family were forced to flee their village in Iraq, where they were part of the Yazidi religious minority, when Isis terrorists attacked.

“I’m thankful I didn’t lose my immediate family, but most of my friends from high school are gone. I don’t want to believe they are in the mass graves, I hope they are alive, but they have been missing ever since,” Avdal told the Guardian, in his first interview since Hollywood star George Clooney and his wife, Amal, a human rights lawyer, revealed they had helped bring him to the US.

The Clooneys spoke about assisting Avdal in an interview with David Letterman, streaming Friday, on the former late night TV host’s new Netflix show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.

“When I met him I remember being so struck by his courage...and how he spoke even after everything he’s lost, about a desire for justice, not revenge,” Amal Clooney told Letterman.

Avdal said he is determined to campaign for the trial at the International Criminal Court of the terrorist leaders who killed or captured an estimated quarter of his village and thousands of his fellow Yazidis, and forced young girls to be sex slaves.

In 2014 Avdal and his family were forced to flee their village in Iraq, where they were part of the Yazidi religious minority, when IsisSIS terrorists attacked. Photograph: The Guardian

“That’s my aim and that is what Amal has been working on, too,” he said. The two met in 2016 when Avdal was working for a non-profit that helps people who have escaped from Isis captivity, particularly girls, after he went back to Iraq from a refugee camp in Turkey and then visited the US.

A year after Donald Trump took the White House and issued an executive order banning refugees and immigrants from a list of Muslim-majority countries, which is still under legal challenge, George Clooney has become one of Hollywood’s most high-profile opponents.

Despite talk of George Clooney running for the presidency, Avdal declined to discuss that or his reaction to Trump’s controversial immigration policies and track record of racial bias.

“I can’t get involved in politics,” he said.

The Yazidi religion draws from Islam, Christianity and Judaism and is a singular culture that has long faced conflict. “We were persecuted under Saddam Hussein, by al-Qaida and now Isis,” said Avdal.

Avdal was in another town working when Isis attacked his village. His mother and siblings managed to flee with just 10 to 15 minutes to spare before the heavily-armed insurgents entered and began systematically killing those left behind. He is the only member of his family in the US. His father had died when he was three, some of his relatives are still in Iraq and his mother is in Germany.

“I miss her. But she is safe there and that’s the most important thing. And I feel very privileged for being given this chance – there are so many other people who need to be rescued,” he said.