Refugees flee torture and oppression top find peace here
Mitch Gaynor
November 14, 2009 11:00pm
THEY are the individuals, couples and families who have come from all corners of the world to start a new life.
The 1100 refugees who arrive through UN-sponsored programs in Queensland each year all share a common bond, having each escaped from a tyrannical and oppressive homeland before finding peace and a new life in a foreign country.
Some of these refugees have arrived in the past few months, with memories of torture, hunger, rape and disease fresh in their minds.
Others have spent decades in Brisbane, establishing careers and families as they forge strong bonds with their communities.
One of the new arrivals is a family of Rohingya people – a Burmese ethnic minority.
Parents Ullah Mohammed and Morium Khatun live with their eight children, aged two to 20, in a modest four-bedroom brick home in Wavell Heights in Brisbane's north.
To them the home, though sparse in furniture and mod-cons, is luxury.
For 16 years they lived in a makeshift camp of 50,000 people in cramped conditions with little food, poor shelter and sanitation, no education and the threat of arrest and murder hanging over their heads.
Older brother Hossan Juhar said it was hard to fathom their new life.
"It is so nice to have freedom to go walking whenever you want," he said.
"You can ask the police for help and they help you. In Myanmar they would arrest you and you could be killed."
Tracy Worrall, director of the Queensland Program of Assistance to Survivors of Torture and Trauma, said the biggest challenges for refugees were adjusting to the culture and expectations of finding employment.
"Most people arriving as refugees are keen to settle as soon as possible," she said.
"They work hard, are highly aspirational, bring diversity, broaden our horizons and contribute to the rich fabric of Australian society."
Multicultural Development Association CEO Kerrin Benson said less than 10 per cent of those refugees into Brisbane had come as boat people.
But despite the grief and trauma, and the UN backing to come to Australia, discrimination was a constant and ongoing challenge.
"Racism and discrimination is patchy, but there are as many people who welcome and celebrate cultural diversity," she said.
Luis Melgar, who lives with his wife and two of his three children at Hillcrest, south of Brisbane, escaped El Salvador at the height of a civil war which cost 75,000 lives during the 1980s.
Mr Melgar recalled the brutality of the regime at the time, seeing mutilated bodies left on the streets as a reminder of the power of the armed forces.
"I remember one day going to work we passed a cemetery and there was a truck full of dead bodies," he recalled.
"When I saw it, I couldn't understand what I was looking at. I could see blood dripping from the truck. It was a horrible image, and I couldn't forget the faces."
He knew nothing about Australia, but risked everything for the sake of his wife and daughter.
"People said we would end up in a concentration camp in the middle of the desert," Mr Melgar said.
"I thought 'whatever we get will be safer than El Salvador'."
In Australia he went through a "tour of duty", in cleaning and factory jobs before studying accounting at university.
He now works full-time as an accountant and his three children have also gone on to study at university.
Tewodros (Teddy) Fekadu arrived on the Gold Coast from Japan in 2003 after an extraordinary journey from the slums of Ethiopia to Egypt and a detention centre in Osaka that was "worse than prison".
Born in 1971 to a 14-year-old girl and disowned by his father, Mr Fekadu spent years on the streets of Addis Ababa, malnourished, constantly sick and barely surviving from day to day.
Despite knowing nothing but hardship, he "knew there could be a better life".
At 21, he travelled to Egypt before flying to Japan on a tourist visa in the late 1990s.
What he didn't know was that he would spend three years in detention centres and, in a brief period of freedom, he would meet his wife-to-be Anita, an Australian-based English teacher.
At the Osaka detention centre, criminals were held with asylum seekers, while beatings and solitary confinement were common. "It was mentally and physically punishing," he said.
In 2003 he finally flew out of Japan destined for Brisbane.
"When that plane left I thought 'this is it, this is my last journey'," he said.
On the Gold Coast, Mr Fekadu established himself as a fierce advocate for human rights and founded the African Community Association.
During his detention in Japan he started writing his memoirs, which have now been published in a book, No One's Son.
"I'm very lucky. When you have this kind of experience you realise life is short."
November 14, 2009 11:00pm
THEY are the individuals, couples and families who have come from all corners of the world to start a new life.
The 1100 refugees who arrive through UN-sponsored programs in Queensland each year all share a common bond, having each escaped from a tyrannical and oppressive homeland before finding peace and a new life in a foreign country.
Some of these refugees have arrived in the past few months, with memories of torture, hunger, rape and disease fresh in their minds.
Others have spent decades in Brisbane, establishing careers and families as they forge strong bonds with their communities.
One of the new arrivals is a family of Rohingya people – a Burmese ethnic minority.
Parents Ullah Mohammed and Morium Khatun live with their eight children, aged two to 20, in a modest four-bedroom brick home in Wavell Heights in Brisbane's north.
To them the home, though sparse in furniture and mod-cons, is luxury.
For 16 years they lived in a makeshift camp of 50,000 people in cramped conditions with little food, poor shelter and sanitation, no education and the threat of arrest and murder hanging over their heads.
Older brother Hossan Juhar said it was hard to fathom their new life.
"It is so nice to have freedom to go walking whenever you want," he said.
"You can ask the police for help and they help you. In Myanmar they would arrest you and you could be killed."
Tracy Worrall, director of the Queensland Program of Assistance to Survivors of Torture and Trauma, said the biggest challenges for refugees were adjusting to the culture and expectations of finding employment.
"Most people arriving as refugees are keen to settle as soon as possible," she said.
"They work hard, are highly aspirational, bring diversity, broaden our horizons and contribute to the rich fabric of Australian society."
Multicultural Development Association CEO Kerrin Benson said less than 10 per cent of those refugees into Brisbane had come as boat people.
But despite the grief and trauma, and the UN backing to come to Australia, discrimination was a constant and ongoing challenge.
"Racism and discrimination is patchy, but there are as many people who welcome and celebrate cultural diversity," she said.
Luis Melgar, who lives with his wife and two of his three children at Hillcrest, south of Brisbane, escaped El Salvador at the height of a civil war which cost 75,000 lives during the 1980s.
Mr Melgar recalled the brutality of the regime at the time, seeing mutilated bodies left on the streets as a reminder of the power of the armed forces.
"I remember one day going to work we passed a cemetery and there was a truck full of dead bodies," he recalled.
"When I saw it, I couldn't understand what I was looking at. I could see blood dripping from the truck. It was a horrible image, and I couldn't forget the faces."
He knew nothing about Australia, but risked everything for the sake of his wife and daughter.
"People said we would end up in a concentration camp in the middle of the desert," Mr Melgar said.
"I thought 'whatever we get will be safer than El Salvador'."
In Australia he went through a "tour of duty", in cleaning and factory jobs before studying accounting at university.
He now works full-time as an accountant and his three children have also gone on to study at university.
Tewodros (Teddy) Fekadu arrived on the Gold Coast from Japan in 2003 after an extraordinary journey from the slums of Ethiopia to Egypt and a detention centre in Osaka that was "worse than prison".
Born in 1971 to a 14-year-old girl and disowned by his father, Mr Fekadu spent years on the streets of Addis Ababa, malnourished, constantly sick and barely surviving from day to day.
Despite knowing nothing but hardship, he "knew there could be a better life".
At 21, he travelled to Egypt before flying to Japan on a tourist visa in the late 1990s.
What he didn't know was that he would spend three years in detention centres and, in a brief period of freedom, he would meet his wife-to-be Anita, an Australian-based English teacher.
At the Osaka detention centre, criminals were held with asylum seekers, while beatings and solitary confinement were common. "It was mentally and physically punishing," he said.
In 2003 he finally flew out of Japan destined for Brisbane.
"When that plane left I thought 'this is it, this is my last journey'," he said.
On the Gold Coast, Mr Fekadu established himself as a fierce advocate for human rights and founded the African Community Association.
During his detention in Japan he started writing his memoirs, which have now been published in a book, No One's Son.
"I'm very lucky. When you have this kind of experience you realise life is short."
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