BAGHDAD — The Sadrist Movement faction in the Iraqi parliament has officially apologised to Vian Dakhil, the Kurdish Yazidi MP, for the offensive statement addressed to her by an MP of the faction.

"We will take you as Sabaya [sex slave] to the protestors,” Majid al-Gharrawi, an MP from the Sadrist Movement parliamentary bloc, said in a parliamentary session to MP Dakhil.

Dakhil is the Yazidi MP who appealed to the world in 2014 to save Yazidis and urged the international community to recognise the atrocities committed against Yazidis by the Islamic State (IS) as genocide.

Sabaya is an Arabic term referring to female prisoners of war - this is the same Arabic word used by IS for women taken as sex slaves by the militants of the group.

Arafat Karam, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi Parliament, told BasNews that a high delegation of Sadrist bloc officially apologised to  Vian Dakhil and the Kurdish bloc after the insulting statement sparked a wave of outrage among the Kurdish MPs in the Iraqi parliament.

Dakhil told BasNews that after conveying an official apology, the Sadrist block claimed that the statement was not intentional.