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Survivor’s courage highlights ‘urgency’ of UN work in Iraq

Karim Asad Ahmad Khan has said that the courage being demonstrated by terrorism survivors coming forward ‘serves to underline the urgency’ that the special UN Investigation Team needs to carry on with their work.

He told the Security Council that the ‘experiences and needs of the survivors of ISIS crimes, and the families of its victims’, were firmly at the centre of UNITAD’s mission. Having been operational in Iraq for a year, tasked with promoting accountability for the crimes committed by ISIS during its years of terror, beginning in 2014, the team is now ‘fully operational’ with a cohort of 107 staff members.

Presenting his third report, Khan stressed that it is his team’s responsibility to honour the strength of the women and girls that he spoke to by delivering on the promise, ‘that those who inflicted their suffering will be held accountable’.

The team now has a group of ‘primary investigative targets’ for all of their lines of investigation, identifying 160 different perpetrators of attacks against the Yazidis in Sinjar alone.

With partnership at the core of the team’s success so far, the Special Adviser said there must be a “broader bond” with the international community also, for the benefit of all survivors. He praised financial and personnel support offered so far by Australia, Germany, Finland, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, Sweden and Uganda.

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