Trump gives awkward response to Nobel prize winning female activist

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday appeared unfamiliar with the work and cause of Nobel laureate Nadia Murad.

Murad, one of thousands of women and girls from the ancient faith abducted by the Daesh group as they overran swathes of Iraq in 2014, joined a group of survivors of religious persecution who met Trump in the Oval Office on the sidelines of a major meeting at the State Department.

After Murad explained how her mother and six brothers were killed and that 3,000 remained missing, Trump said, "And you had the Nobel Prize? That´s incredible. They gave it to you for what reason?"

With little pause, Murad, who was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year, repeated her story.

"After all this happened to me, I didn´t give up. I make it clear to everyone that Daesh raped thousands of women," she said, referring to the Daesh group.

"Please do something. It´s not about one family," she said.

Trump, who has boasted of crushing the self-styled caliphate of the Daesh group that once stretched across Iraq and Syria, also appeared at a loss when Murad asked him to press the Iraqi and Kurdish governments to create safe conditions for the Yazidis to return.

"But Daesh is gone and now it´s Kurdish and who?" Trump asked, before later telling her, "I know the area very well."

The US leader also appeared unfamiliar when he met a representative from the Rohingya, a Muslim minority targeted in a brutal campaign two years ago in Myanmar.

One day earlier, his administration banned travel to the United States by Myanmar´s army chief and three other senior officers, calling the violence "ethnic cleansing."