Amal Clooney describes UN investigation into ISIL war crimes as step in the right direction

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has described the United Nations’ unanimous vote to create an investigation into the war crimes committed by ISIL as a major step forward for victims of the militant group to “finally get their day in court”. Clooney, who has been representing Nobel Peace Prize nominee Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman captured and tortured by ISIL in 2014, has long pushed Iraq to allow U.N. investigators to help and said the resolution was a milestone in the fight for justice. Murad was studying in the village of Kocho in Sinjar when ISIL fighters slaughtered 600 members of the Yazidi community, including six of her brothers and stepbrothers. The younger women were taken into slavery and Murad became one of more than 6,700 Yazidi women taken prisoner. While captive in the city of Mosul, she was beaten, burned with cigarettes and raped when trying to escape. She was smuggled out of the ISIL-controlled area and in February 2015 she gave her first testimony to reporters. Since then, she has briefed the United Nations Security Council on the issue of human trafficking and conflict and become an advocate for human rights.