Two Yazidi women who survived sexual enslavement by Islamic State before escaping and becoming “inspirational” advocates for their community in Iraq have won the EU’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize.



Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar were abducted with other Yazidi women in August 2014 when their home village of Kocho in Sinjar, northern Iraq, was attacked by Isis jihadis. It was one of the darkest episodes Iraq has suffered at the hands of the terrorist group.

The annual Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, established in 1988, is named after the Soviet physicist and outspoken dissident Andrei Sakharov and is awarded to “individuals who have made an exceptional contribution to the fight for human rights across the globe”. It has previously been awarded to the likes of Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela.



The EU described Murad and Aji Bashar as “public advocates for the Yazidi community in Iraq, a religious minority that has been the subject of a genocidal campaign by IS militants”.



Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the European parliament’s liberal ALDE group, said the pair were “inspirational women who have shown incredible bravery and humanity in the face of despicable brutality”.

The EU’s prize will again put a spotlight on the plight of Yazidis, some of whom are still held in Isis captivity. Although some have been rescued, the majority of those taken by Isis are still being held, with about 3,600 mostly women and children missing.

Hundreds were thought to be captive in Mosul, but activists and their families fear Isis will transport them to Syria as a broad coalition of anti-Isis forces pushes towards the group’s main Iraqi stronghold.

News of the prize came as fighting continued on the ground in Iraq, with the army – on the 11th day of a ground offensive to recapture Mosul – inching closer to the city.

Last year the Sakharov prize was awarded to Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger and activist sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam. In 2012 the award was shared by two Iranians, human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and celebrated film-maker Jafar Panahi, leading to Sotoudeh’s release from prison.



Among the 2016 finalists were the Turkish journalist Can Dündar and the Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzemilev.

Murad, who won the Council of Europe’s Václav Havel human rights prize earlier this month, was captured in 2014 alongside her sisters, and lost six brothers and her mother as Isis jihadis killed the village’s men and any women considered too old to be sexually exploited.

A family helped her to escape and she went to Germany. A year later she addressed the UN security council and became the goodwill ambassador for the UN office on drugs and crime.

Aji Bashar, whose brother and father were killed by Isis, was used as a sex slave by the militants and forced to make bombs and suicide vests.

“Aji Bashar tried to flee several times before finally escaping in April with the help of her family, who paid local smugglers,” an EU statement said. She eventually went to Germany, where she received medical care and joined her surviving siblings.

“Since her recovery Aji Bashar has been active in raising awareness of the plight of the Yazidi community and continues to help women and children who were victims of IS enslavement and atrocities.”

Those who have escaped mostly did so with the help of Yazidi smugglers and a local “underground railway”, and Yazidis resent the lack of support from the international community and fellow Iraqis.

More than two years after the genocidal Isis attacks on their homeland, hundreds of thousands are still living in refugee camps because they fear it is not safe to return home, even to villages that have been freed from Isis control. Many of the villages are still in ruins, with few services.

Yazda, an NGO that supports the Yazidi community in Iraq, congratulated Murad and Aji Bashar on their award and urged the west not to ignore the plight of Yazidis still in captivity.

“This occasion is a meaningful moment for the Yazidi community worldwide to celebrate,” it said. “However, Yazda sincerely hopes that in addition to this substantial acknowledgment of Nadia and Lamiya’s work, the international community will turn more attention to the thousands of Yazidi women and children still in captivity, the thousands of Yazidi men whose whereabouts remain unknown to their families, and to the hundreds of thousands of Yazidis who remain displaced in Iraq and elsewhere and are unable to return to their homelands and begin rebuilding their lives.”

Khider Domle, an academic and activist based in Dohuk, said: “It’s another major recognition for them to get this kind of prize. As activists and members of the Yazidi community, we really welcome this. It will help our cause to be more recognised in the world.”

On Thursday the US said up to 900 Isis jihadis had been killed in the offensive to retake Mosul, as camps around the city filled with fleeing civilians.

In an area close to the town of Hammam al-Alil, to the south of Mosul, Isis fighters resisted by using snipers and suicide bombings, and were reported to have carried out a mass execution in the city to deter citizens from aiding the US-led offensive.

Iraqi special forces said Isis resistance had been cleared from the east of Mosul and that the focus was now on the south.

It is not clear how long it will take the coalition to oust Isis from Mosul, in what is the biggest ground offensive in Iraq since the US invasion in 2003.



The US secretary of defence, Ashton Carter, has said the campaign will soon broaden to Syria, where plans are under way for a similar offensive against Isis jihadis in Raqqa, the de facto capital of the group.