Yazidi refugees fleeing northern Iraq arrive in Toowoomba to write a new history in Australia
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On Queensland's Darling Downs history is being made as an ancient people start a new life in a new home.
Far from a troubled region in northern Iraq, under attack from Islamic jihadists, many stateless Yazidi families are now being settled in the regional Queensland city of Toowoomba.
"We have here in Toowoomba one of the largest groups. I think, up to 100 families have arrived," said David Barton, the team leader at refugee service provider Mercy Community Services.
This week a group of Yazidi men and women, who also call themselves Ezidi, gathered to discuss something once strictly illegal — the establishment of an Yazidi community group.
"They put us in prison, tortured us did everything to us to prevent us from having our own organisations and associations," said Jan Ezidkhalo, a refugee himself and a former journalist and UN translator.
"It's completely banned to study Kurdish, any dialect, our religion is banned."
"And now we are free to do that, which is a great feeling."
From frontline reporting in the Middle East, to rural Queensland, Mr Ezidkhalo has only been in Australia for five months.
But with little or no speakers of the Kurdish dialect Kurmanji in Australia, he was straight back to work.
"It's very new for people — a new constitution, democratic law, you can choose what you like," Mr Ezdikhalo said.
"This causes challenges — when suddenly you are free to choose what you like, there will be challenges between people."
Sixty per cent rise in new arrivals
Over the past year, Toowoomba, in Queensland's south east, has seen a significant rise in new arrivals.
"Each year the number of new arrivals to Toowoomba has been increasing and that's really because settlement here for refugees has gone so well," Kerrin Benson said, CEO of Multicultural Development Australia.
"This year we're going to settle about 60 per cent more people than we settled last year," Ms Benson said.
In 2013 the Toowoomba local government area declared itself a refugee welcome zone, and in August the city will host a national settlement conference.
"The reason we're settling many more refugees in Toowoomba is because Toowoomba's seen nationally as great regional settlement area," Ms Benson said.
History of successful migration
Toowoomba has a history of migration driving cultural, social and economic development.
From the early Chinese, to the South Sudanese and other African communities, and south east Asian and middle eastern groups who now call the region home.
The council said welcoming new arrivals was part of the city's corporate plan.
"Making sure we're a safe place. We're a welcoming place and a place that respects all those other nationalities that come to our region," said Cr Geoff McDonald, chair of the environment and community committee.
An Iraqi family reflects
Matti Afrin Simon was forced to flee his home in Mosul after Islamic State militants threatened his family.With his wife and four adult children, he drove 20 hours to Duhok in Iraq's north.
"They took my home, we lost everything," he said.
The family is among thousands of Christians forced to flee the violence.
Mr Afrin's wife Hanan says the situation is inhumane.
"We are being slaughtered. We are living aimlessly without hope and without a future," she said.
The family is staying in a two-bedroom home with more than 20 others.
But Mr Afrin says they are lucky compared to other minority groups like the Yazidis.
Mr Afrin's daughter Rana says there is little hope as militants continue to expand their territory.
"We don't go to work, we don't go to college. What is the future?" she asked.
"This is a disaster, this is a complete disaster."
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Cr McDonald said, as a born and bred local and fifth generation business owner, migration was enriching the social fabric of the city.
"We have seen already, the opening of businesses that probably one would think may not have ever opened in a place like Toowoomba - an Afghan shop selling Afghan products for instance," he said.
"That's pretty special for a community."
Mr Barton said migration was also driving the economy.
"Well to put it frankly, the main driver of population growth comes from overseas," he said.
"They're our next workforce, so the contribution is significant to this region."
Traumatic history and cultural transition
For the Yazidi families settling in Toowoomba, the process is filled with mixed feelings.
For many, they have family members who have been kidnapped, killed or enslaved by extremist Islamic groups like ISIS.
For hundreds of years the Yazidi have been a stateless persecuted minority. The bulk of the roughly 700,000 people live in the north of Iraq in Shekhan, northeast of Mosul, and in Sinjar, at the Syrian border about 80 kilometres west of Mosul.
Their religion is neither Christian or Islamic. Yazidi is the religion, and they believe it to be the oldest in the world.
They do not believe in one god, instead in seven holy beings they call angels, the most significant of which is a fallen angel called Tawsi Melek, or the Peacock Angel.
It is this belief that has lead to them being labelled as devil worshippers, bringing centuries of suppression and genocide.
Toowoomba is a long way from the ridges of Mt Sinjar, where some of the new Yazidi residents were recently trapped between Syrian forces and ISIS fighters.
But the war continues and the plight of the Yazidi has not improved.
"Yes it's difficult — yes we are here happy, there are a lot of opportunities, but we can't forget about what is going on there," Mr Ezidkhalo said.
For him and hundreds of other new Yazidi in Toowoomba, now is a chance for a new start and the first chapter of the Australian Yazidi story.
"So it's time to tell Australian's, about our religion, language culture so that they will know more about us," Mr Ezidkhalo said.
Topics: refugees, unrest-conflict-and-war, immigration, regional-development, regional, human-rights, toowoomba-4350, brisbane-4000
