Armidale residents and dignitaries joined Ezidi refugees in a moving service at the Armidale Ex-Services Memorial Club on Saturday afternoon.
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Five years ago that day, Islamic extremists murdered and kidnapped thousands of Ezidis in the Iraqi city of Sinjar (Shingal).
The atrocities that began on August 3, 2014, were the 74th such genocide, by this people's reckoning.
The Ezidi, who claim to be one of the world's oldest religions, have been persecuted for centuries, called devil-worshippers and infidels.
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ISIS militants killed more than 1000 men within the first few hours of the August 2014 attack, Ezidi community member Hasan Saffuk said.
Thousands of girls, children, and women were later abducted, sold as slaves, or murdered. More than 200,000 Ezidis who fled the city were trapped, starving, on a nearby mountain, while the sick and aged who could not escape were executed.
"ISIS committed terrible and brutal crimes against the Ezidis and humanity," Mr Saffuk said.
Kurdish forces, supported by a US-led coalition, liberated the city on 2015 - but, the Kurdistan 24 news service reports, the city, reduced to rubble, is still too unsafe to return. The fate of many Ezidis is unknown, while many children are orphaned.
Nearly 3000 Ezidi refugees have come to Australia as part of a government humanitarian resettlement process, beginning with 200 people last year.
"Every single one ... has survived at great personal cost to themselves," human rights advocate Dr Robin Jones said. "There is not one single person here, or their children, who has not seen or experienced horrors."
Fathers and husbands, she said, had been shot; mothers and young girls sexually abused; livelihoods and homes destroyed. Some Ezidis had been ISIS prisoners for years until ransomed; others had lost parents, grandparents, siblings, or children.
Ezidis, Mr Saffuk said, were happy to be in a safe, peaceful country, and looked forward to serving it. Already, Dr Jones said, some are working; joining in school activities in near-perfect English; or preparing for university.
"Our minds, however, are still with our relatives and friends in camps in the Middle East," Mr Saffuk said. "Ezidis are living in terrible conditions, and they are still in danger."
On behalf of the Armidale Ezidis, Mr Saffuk and Dr Sarbast Qassim gave Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall a letter to the state and federal governments, urging them to allow more Ezidis to resettle in Australia, and to urge the coalition armies to find missing and kidnapped Ezidis.
Mr Marshall promised he would pass on the letter.
"We are, by world standards, an incredibly wealthy country," he said. "I feel that puts an obligation on us to welcome people such as yourselves and others who will come after you, and help you and support you."