Mayada Oso, 21, Coffs Harbour, NSW.
Frantically closing doors and windows, my family huddled in the kitchen, terrified.
I was 11 and lived in Kocho, Iraq, with my parents, two younger brothers, baby sister, and relatives.
It was August 2014, and for weeks Kocho had been surrounded by the terrorist organisation, ISIS, which was torturing and beheading people outside the town.
As Yazidi people, we were despised by ISIS for our religion and now, they’d infiltrated our village.
A soldier wielding a large gun kicked open our door.
“To the school, now!” he yelled in Arabic.
My mum, Shaha, cradling my sister in one arm, took my hand as we all hurried outside.
If my parents are with me, I’m safe, I thought.
At the school, the men were separated…
