Corio barber Anmol Nabil Jameel fled ISIS invasion, built new life for his family in Australia

A Corio barber ran for his life when ISIS invaded his hometown in northern Iraq. Now, the father of two is living his dream life with his family in Australia.

Anmol Nabil Jameel is a refugee who escaped persecution in Iraq. He came to Australia with his family in 2019 and now owns a popular barber shop in Corio Village. Picture: Alan Barber

It was less than a week after Anmol Nabil Jameel married the love of his life that his world was torn apart when ISIS invaded his hometown.

The Iraqi Christian and his family fled in fear from the northern town of Qaraqosh with only the clothes on their back.

Speaking in Iraqi Arabic through a translator, he recalls how he ran for his life from the fighters who were wrecking terror across his country and the Middle East.

Now, the proud owner of a popular barber shop in Corio, he has built a life for him and his family since they arrived safely in Australia in November 2019.

Mr Jameel was born and raised in Qaraqosh, which is also known as Al-Hamdaniya, an Assyrian city in Iraq.

The now 33-year-old says the area was considered safe because most people who lived there were Christian.

The dominant religion in Iraq is Islam.

“If you wanted to go outside Qaraqosh, you risked being persecuted by other religions, mainly Muslim people,” he says.

Mr Jameel had a normal childhood, playing with his friends and going to school.

He moved to Baghdad while he was studying languages at university and graduated in 2014.

But it was in July that same year, when he had moved back to Qaraqosh, and just four days after he married his wife, Mirna, that the life he always knew changed forever.

ISIS had invaded.

ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is a terrorist organisation and Sunni jihadist group.

It is known for its violent ideology and strict set of Islamic beliefs.

The group has claimed responsibility for a number of terrorist attacks in the Middle East and internationally.

ISIS has also “inspired” other terror attacks, including in 2017 when a man drove his SUV into pedestrians in Flinders St in Melbourne.

Anmol Nabil Jameel is a refugee who escaped persecution in Iraq. He now owns a successful barber shop in Corio Village. Picture: Alan Barber

The group had been invading other areas of northern Iraq the month before the attack on Mr Jameel’s hometown, and the eventual take over of Qaraqosh saw thousands of Christians flee the town.

Mr Jameel remembers how he and his neighbours would stand on the rooftops of their homes, loading their guns and preparing their weapons, while watching ISIS move closer,

When the soldiers invaded, the local people were screaming “they are here, they are here”.

He remembers how he cried as he ran away from his hometown and from everything he had every known.

“I felt like I lost everything - my childhood, my neighbourhood, my friends,” he recalls.

“We only had the clothes on our backs, no bags, no money, nothing.

“We didn’t want to be kidnapped by ISIS.

“We were so afraid.”

Two of his cousins were kidnapped by soliders and they haven’t heard from them since.

His wife’s aunt was held captive by ISIS for three years.

“They tried to sell her,” Mr Jameel says.

She arrived in Australia six months ago, but she is still “terrified and traumatised”.

“ISIS aren’t human,” he says.

“We lost everything.”

Mr Jameel, his wife, parents and four siblings, fled to Kurdistan, a region north of Qaraqosh, which was considered a safe area as it was under US control.

He said life there was “difficult” and he found it hard to get a job but eventually found employment as a construction manager.

“We tried to save as much money as we could because we didn’t want to stay in Iraq anymore,” Mr Jameel said.

“It was very dangerous.”

Mr Jameel and his family stayed in Kurdistan for two years.

While they were living there, his wife gave birth to their first daughter, Shanel.

In 2016, they moved more than 1500km away to Jordan, but Mr Jameel needed to find work to be able to provide for his wife and child.

Before the ISIS invasion, when Mr Jameel was living on campus at university he would cut his friends’ hair and shave their beards.

Later, he wandered into a barber shop in Jordan and, luckily, the owner gave him a job.

“The owner of the shop told me that I had some good (barber) skills so I started working there,” he says.

Never in his wildest dreams did Mr Jameel think he would one day have his very own barber shop, and that it would be in Geelong.

He said it was always been his dream to come to Australia.

He has Iraqi friends who have been living here for about 15 years now and they told him how good their lives were.

While living in Jordan and working as a barber Mr Jameel applied for refugee visa, which allows people to come to Australia if they are “subject to persecution in (their) home country”.

Unfortunately, his application was not approved.

But, the French embassy had approved a visa for him and his family to move to France.

“But I decided not to go (to France),” he said.

“Being in Australia was my dream.”

He then discovered a community support program (CSP), which helps skilled workers seek refuge in Australia.

With assistance from Cultura, a Geelong-based community service organisation, he applied for the program.

When Mr Jameel found out his CSP application had been approved and he had been granted his ImmiCard, which is given to visa holders who cannot obtain a passport, he was dancing around his home in Jordan.

“I couldn’t believe that I had been accepted into Australia,” he laughs.

Cultura chief executive Joy Leggo said the organisation helped to support Mr Jameel and his family transition into life in Australia.

“Every refugee has a unique story,” she says.

“It’s our role to support them with their dreams.

“It’s important to acknowledge the contribute of refugees to our community, they add to much value to what we have here.”

Mr Jameel has now been living in Australia for almost four years with his wife and two children.

His second child, Kyle, was born in Melbourne last year.

Eight months ago, Mr Jameel opened his very own barber shop in Corio Village named Band of Barbers.

He says it was a “difficult” process because he only speaks broken English and he was travelling up and down from Melbourne daily.

He now has a team of six employees, three who previously had no experience in barbering and he trained them to cut hair and shave beards from scratch.

He hopes one day in the future to have a franchises of stores across the country.

“I’ve been through a lot of difficult times but I feel so lucky that I made it to Australia,” he says.

Originally published as Corio barber Anmol Nabil Jameel fled ISIS invasion, built new life for his family in Australia