Summary of Nadia Murad & Amal Clooney's The Last Girl

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 Yazidi villages have been targets for persecution for centuries, and Kocho was no different. The Yazidis were constantly being pulled between the competing forces of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds, who wanted them to deny their Yazidi heritage and conform to Kurdish or Arab identities.

#2 The rest of Iraq was outside of Kocho, and in peacetime, it would take a Yazidi merchant 15 minutes to drive from Kocho to the nearest Sunni village to sell his grain or milk. But when there was fighting in Iraq, those villages loomed over us, their smaller Yazidi neighbor, and old prejudice hardened easily into hatred.

#3 The Yazidis were eventually saved when the two farmers they had kidnapped escaped through a broken window, ran through the barley fields, and showed up at home, alive. But the kidnappings didn’t stop.

#4 The day after Dishan was taken, Kocho was in chaos. Villagers huddled in front of their doors, and along with men who took turns manning a new checkpoint just beyond the village walls, they watched for any unfamiliar cars coming through Kocho.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669379157

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Insights on Nadia Murad & Amal Clooney's The Last Girl

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Yazidi villages have been targets for persecution for centuries, and Kocho was no different. The Yazidis were constantly being pulled between the competing forces of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds, who wanted them to deny their Yazidi heritage and conform to Kurdish or Arab identities.

#2

The rest of Iraq was outside of Kocho, and in peacetime, it would take a Yazidi merchant 15 minutes to drive from Kocho to the nearest Sunni village to sell his grain or milk. But when there was fighting in Iraq, those villages loomed over us, their smaller Yazidi neighbor, and old prejudice hardened easily into hatred.

#3

The Yazidis were eventually saved when the two farmers they had kidnapped escaped through a broken window, ran through the barley fields, and showed up at home, alive. But the kidnappings didn’t stop.

#4

The day after Dishan was taken, Kocho was in chaos. Villagers huddled in front of their doors, and along with men who took turns manning a new checkpoint just beyond the village walls, they watched for any unfamiliar cars coming through Kocho.

#5

The peshmerga assured the Yazidis that they would protect them, but few thought they would actually do anything to help them. It was the job of the men in Kocho to protect their village, and they did so, building a dirt barrier with their own hands around the village after the 2007 attacks.

#6

I lived with my mother, six of my eight brothers, and two sisters-in-law in a one-story row of mud brick rooms in the northern edge of the village. I was close to the northern edge of the village, and the roof leaked in the winter when it rained.

#7

The Yazidis and other minorities in Iraq adapted to the new threats. They would get used to a small pain or injustice until it became normal enough to ignore.

#8

The militants also took the villagers’ two sheep, which they said was a warning that they would take the women and children. The lamb was meant to symbolize the girls.

#9

My