Two Yazidi women who were captured by Islamic State militants as children have accused an Australian ISIS family of keeping them as slaves.

One woman, known only as Tayseer, was allegedly enslaved by Melbourne couple Mohammad Ahmad and Kawsar Abbas for 18 months at their home in Syria, before the fall of IS in 2019.

She alleges Ahmad, who she called Abu Omar, and his late son Omar raped her repeatedly, forced her to cook and clean, and ‘treated her horribly’.

‘He could have been my father or grandfather. There’s nothing worse than the things he did to me,’ she previously told the ABC.

Omar died in the conflict and Ahmad is detained in a Kurdish prison. He previously agreed his son kept a Yazidi slave, but claimed she was treated ‘like a daughter’.

Abbas, 53, and her youngest daughter Zeinab Ahmad, 31, spent years at the Al-Roj refugee camp in north-eastern Syria, before they flew back to Melbourne on May 7.

They were arrested by Australian Federal Police shortly after landing and charged with enslavement and using a slave. They are yet to enter pleas.

Sarab Issa, 23, also alleges she was briefly enslaved by the Ahmad family at their Syrian home in 2016, when she was 14.

+7
View gallery

Sarab Issa is pictured, left, weeping over the remains of 41 Yazidis who were found in a mass grave in northern Iraq in 2024

+7
View gallery

Sarab Issa (pictured) has been a vocal advocate forYazidi women who were enslaved by IS fighters

+7
View gallery

Kawsar Abbas is pictured inside a prison van in Melbourne on May 11, after being charged with slavery offences

She alleged she was forced to stay with the family for three days, previously telling the ABC: ‘If they liked my work, they were going to buy me.

‘It was very unpleasant. I was their slave and they could do whatever they wanted to me,’ she added

‘My life was controlled by them. It felt like my existence did not matter.’

Ms Issa said she forgot to wash the dishes one day and alleged Ahmad and his daughter-in-law locked her in a room for 12 hours with no food.

‘[The Ahmad family] said that they won’t buy me, because they don’t want to buy slaves,’ she said.

She was then returned to her previous captor.

Ms Issa had six IS captors since she was first abducted and sold as a slave at age 11.

She said she was travelling in a truck with her family when IS militants shot the tyres, carried her off the truck, and took her across the border to a slave market.

+7
View gallery

Mohammad Ahmad (pictured) went to the Turkey-Syrian border in 2012. He is now in a Syrian jail

+7
View gallery

Zeinab Ahmad, 31, (pictured in a prison truck) will apply for bail in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in June

The man who bought her first was a 56-year-old from Iraq.

He drugged and raped her, before selling her to an IS militant from Saudi Arabia, who also raped her.

She was freed in 2019 and went to live at Mam Rashan camp, which is a settlement for displaced people in northern Iraq.

Both women are prepared to give evidence against Abbas and her daughter.

Abbas left Australia in March 2014 to join her husband in Turkey.

He ran a charity in Syria which was suspected by Australian Federal Police of funnelling money into IS – which the couple deny.

They claimed they only crossed the border into Syria for their son Omar’s wedding, and were blindsided when they realised he had pledged allegiance to IS.

Since being detained at Al Roj refugee camp, Abbas and her two daughters repeatedly pleaded for Australian government help to return home.

+7
View gallery

Pictured: A court sketch of Kawsar Abbas in Melbourne Magistrate’s Court on May 8

+7
View gallery

Pictured: Zahra Ahmad leaving Melbourne Airport on May 7. She has not been charged with any criminal offences

The family and another ISIS bride, Janai Safar, 32, and their combined nine children left the camp in late April, but were held up in Damascus for two weeks by Syrian authorities.

Safar landed in Sydney on May 7 and was charged with entering and remaining in a declared conflict zone and with joining the terrorist organisation.

Abbas and her youngest daughter Zeinab Ahmad were charged with enslavement and using a slave. Abbas was also charged with possessing a slave and engaging in slave trading.

Her oldest daughter Zahra, 33, is not accused of committing any crimes.

Court documents allege Abbas enslaved, possessed and used a slave in Mayadin, Hajin, Gharanji, Bahra, Abu Hamam, Walaa and other places in the Deir ez-Zor province of Syria between June 2017 and November 2018.

The documents also allege she was complicit in buying a female slave for more than AU$14,000, and knowingly kept the woman in her home.

Abbas and Ahmad allegedly ‘committed intentionally or knowingly as part of a widespread or systemic attack directed against a civilian population’, according to the documents.

They faced Melbourne Magistrates’ Court separately earlier in May after they were taken into custody at the airport.

Ahmad will make a bail application on Wednesday. Abbas will apply for bail on June 16.