France to take in 100 Yazidi women

Paris - French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to bring to France 100 Yazidi women who were victims of assault by Daesh in northern Iraq beginning in 2014, his office said Thursday.

Macron’s offer came after a meeting in Paris with Nadia Murad, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this month for her campaign to end sexual violence as a weapon of war.

Murad was one of thousands of Yazidi women captured by Daesh before they were driven out of Sinjar and other parts of Iraq, starting with campaigns by Kurdish forces backed by US-led coalition forces.

Macron said that in response to Murad’s request, 20 of the refugees being held without access to care in Iraqi Kurdistan would come to France by the end of this year, and the remainder in 2019.

He said he would also back Murad’s launch of a reconstruction fund for Sinjar to build hospitals and schools, hopefully encouraging Yazidis who had fled to return to their bastion.