Yazidi man Khaled Ali is one of about 4,000 Yazidi people who found sanctuary in Toowoomba after fleeing Syria and Iran where ISIS committed genocide on their community nine years ago.

Mr Ali met his now wife Aveen Khider, who is also a resettled Yazidi, at TAFE in Toowoomba and they married in August 2019.

They are grateful to be raising their two young sons in the Garden City but their new-found safety has come with a cultural cost.

“We would like a place where people from my community can teach our children our (Kurdish) language. Many children now only speak English,” Mr Ali said.

“Somewhere we can come together to teach young people about our culture. A place to meet to celebrate holy days, weddings and funerals,” he said.

The Yazidi people are one of the most ancient nations in the world that predates Christianity and Islam by thousands of years.

They inherited their identity, faith, culture and tradition from their ancestors through strict in-marriage. The only way to become Yazidi is to be born from two Yazidi parents.

Yazidism knowledge is passed down through the generations by language rather than via a religious text.

Yazda Australia member Peter Cavanagh, who strives to advocate for Toowoomba’s Yazidi residents, is searching for a place for the community to use for cultural and worship practice and the celebration of significant events.

“Their religion is not a religion of the book,” Mr Cavanagh said.

“Therefore, it is crucial to their heritage and faith that they participate in high holy days of which there are about 50 in a year,” he said.

“The cohesion of the Yazidi community has been significantly affected and there is considerable risk that Yazidi cultural identity, memories and practices central to their ancient culture will disappear forever.”

Member for Toowoomba South David Janetzki MP said Toowoomba was home to the largest Yazidi community in Australia and it was important they found a meeting place to call their own.

“Finding the Yazidi community a place of worship can create a significant, lasting change for generations to come,” Mr Janetzki said.

“Many Yazidis have lived through unimaginable trauma and a place of worship would give them a sense of belonging where they could begin to heal,” he said.

In 2014 terrorist group ISIS launched a campaign of ethnic and religious cleansing of the Yazidi minority in Iraq. They were subjected to mass executions, mass rape, sexual slavery, and forced religious conversions.

Thousands of Yazidi people were murdered, and more than 2,760 Yazidi women and girls are still missing after their reported abductions, sex trafficking and enslavement.

More than 360,000 Yazidi people remain in displacement camps throughout Iraq and Syria.