Hundreds of American Yazidis, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad, have filed a lawsuit against the French cement company Lafarge. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday, accuses Lafarge of conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State (ISIS) group in Iraq and Syria. The plaintiffs, all American citizens, are represented by human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and former U.S. diplomat Lee Wolosky. These plaintiffs and their families are survivors of ISIS violence, which began in 2014 when the group targeted the Yazidi homeland in Sinjar, Northern Iraq.
The lawsuit filed in a federal court in New York alleges that Lafarge “aided and abetted international terrorism acts committed by ISIS, colluded with the organization and its intermediaries, and should pay damages to the survivors.” Lafarge admitted guilt in a U.S. court in October last year to charges of financing groups the United States categorizes as “terrorist,” including ISIS, to maintain its operations in Syria. Lafarge, now part of the Swiss-listed company Holcim since 2015, agreed to pay $778 million in fines as part of the plea agreement.
Clooney commented on the case, stating, “It is shocking that a leading global company worked alongside ISIS while the organization was executing American civilians and committing genocide against Yazidis.” When Lafarge admitted guilt last year, Holcim stated that it was not involved in the matter and had never operated in Syria.
The lawsuit against Lafarge details that “before, during, and after ISIS carried out these brutal attacks on Yazidis, the defendants were paying and conspiring with the organization.” Murad, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for her efforts to end the use of rape as a weapon of war, shared her personal ordeal of family loss, enslavement, and daily exploitation and abuse at the hands of ISIS. She emphasized that her story is not unique among Yazidi women and that the horror they faced occurred with the sight and support of powerful companies like Lafarge.
In a similar lawsuit filed in July, families of an American aid worker and U.S. soldiers killed or wounded by ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front also sued Lafarge.
