Video: Notts TV’s Sharon Walia meets Rachel Miller
A Nottingham woman who has saved women raped by Islamic State militants says she knows her work could make her a target – but that she won’t stop.
Rachel Miller has been risking her life for more than ten years to help refugees from all around the world.
Her Kurdish husband’s family lives near a refugee camp in a dangerous area of southern Turkey, with around 6,000 ethnic Yazidi refugees from northern Iraq.
She began helping people by taking supplies to Turkey and also to refugees in the Calais ‘jungle’ migrant camp.
She spoke to Notts TV’s Sharon Walia about some of her experiences and the people she has helped to save.
Her efforts also include taking money to families and supporting women who have been sexually and physically abused by men from Islamic State in Syria before they fled across the border.
I met a six year old girl that had been raped for nearly two years
Rachel said: “I met a six year-old girl that had been raped when I was over in Turkey in August and she’d been raped for nearly two years.
“She managed to escape from an ISIS compound, she ran to a neighbour for help and the neighbour took her in.
“But they thought that they could make money and contacted her family and wanted $10,000 for putting her up.”
Rachel said that she ‘can’t stop’ helping others and does so every six weeks.
She is now setting up a charity shop in Cinderhill to raise cash to support her missions.
She said: “I’m very aware that I could be a target for a lone ISIS sympathiser but I can’t stop.
“You bring someone to safety and you bring someone to freedom and to see their face when they are free.
“About every six weeks I do something, even if it’s a run-over to the other side of the channel because you can’t believe people are hungry just five hours from Nottingham.”
