Armidale refugees' restaurant The Minnie Barn changes name to Ezidi Place

"They posted her photo on Facebook and they said 'who wants to buy this woman with three children?'" Manal said.

"When my family saw her photos, we said 'Yes, if they want to sell. We will buy."

It was a close call for a family who escaped the genocide of the Islamic State (Daesh) during the 2014 massacre in the town of Sinjar, northern Iraq. It was Manal's home.

Today Manal is one of more than 600 Ezidis living in Armidale as a result of an earlier campaign by locals to have those from the persecuted minority group resettled here.

Manal said she felt safe in Australia and her English was improving but she misses Sinjar because many members from her family remain there.

"We feel like we are safe here, we can sleep safely, we know it's safe. But still, it's really difficult to forget," Manal said.

"We will never forget."

Manal is one of a few Ezidi chefs who cooked up plates of traditional food for a canape-style, stand-up, event with a live band on Wednesday, for the official name change of The Minnie Barn to Ezidi Place.

The restaurant is located on Dangar Street in Armidale and has been selling Ezidi food since its inception on Australia Day 2020. The Ezidi Place and next door Comfort Inn Motel are owned by the very community-minded Mitchell family.

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Phill Mitchell said they were not sure what the end goal of the restaurant would be. The space provided continental breakfasts before it became a restaurant.

He said in the beginning they just wanted to open a restaurant and that they hired some "nice Ezidi people" because they wanted to cook.

Ezidi Place has since successfully become a point of difference for the business, Mr Mitchell said, being the only Ezidi restaurant in Armidale.

"It's almost like they're preparing for a big family feast," Mr Mitchell said of the atmosphere behind the kitchen doors.

The delicious aroma of perfectly cut vegetables spiced with Middle Eastern herbs wafts amid friendly chatter and bouts of laughter.

Kibbeh, the football-shaped croquettes made of bulgur wheat, mince and fragrant herbs and spices, are Mr Mitchell's favourite and will be making a regular appearance on Ezidi menu, along with biryani, naan with hummus, and sweet potato fries.

But the job seemed only natural for Manal whose mother taught her how to cook banquets for the whole family when she was a teenager living in Iraq.

Manal arrived in Australia in 2019 on one of 12,000 extra humanitarian visas the Australian government announced in 2015 for displaced people in Iraq and Syria.

The then 24-year-old began working on a tomato farm near Armidale upon arrival but told her job provider that she would be happier working as a chef at the Minnie Barn.

Manal was one of tens of thousands of Ezidi people besieged on the rocky Sinjar Mountain surrounded by Daesh just days after she and her family were forced to flee their home in 2014.

Manal said during the seven days she was there, she saw people dying of hunger and thirst during the unforgivable heat of an Iraqi summer on a mountain bereft of rivers or much shade.

The situation was so desperate that US forces had to drop pellets of food, water and medical supplies onto the mountain as Kurdish fighters provided ground reinforcement to stop terrorist group Daesh.

Eventually Manal and her family made it to Kurdistan where they lived in a refugee camp.

There, one mother told her she was forced to abandon her three children on the mountain because she didn't have help to get them to safety.

It was a very difficult time for Manal who attempted to return to Sinjar but found the situation too unsafe.

Luckily, she and nine members of her family managed to get a plane ticket on a humanitarian visa to Australia.

As of December 2021, more than 2800 Ezidi women and children were still held captive by Daesh or remained missing, according to Amnesty International.

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