Sohaila, 23, and Mahnaz, 18, Angury are sisters based in Sydney. They are members of the Hazara community, a persecuted minority in Afghanistan. They fled to Australia 11 years ago. This is their story.
We’ll never forget the first moment we reunited with our father, Hafizullah, at the Sydney airport eleven years ago. Our Dad had fled Afghanistan six years earlier, after his advocacy on behalf of the Hazara people put him in a lot of danger. Many others in our community were murdered. Many of them were not even political advocates. They were murdered because being Hazara is a crime in Afghanistan. Even as little girls we understood this. We knew that, to many people, it was wrong for us to even exist.
We can still remember Dad standing there, waiting for us in his favourite suit, holding flowers and balloons. He made us all little party bags full of assorted lollies. We were 12 and 6, our brother Nasratullah was 10. It was dad’s first time seeing Mahnaz because he had fled before she was born. He tried to hug her, but she resisted: she did not recognise him.
We remember our mother and father looking at each other, struggling for words. They were both in tears. There were tender, clumsy hugs. What do you say, after so long? After six years apart from the people who are your everything?
Dad had left Afghanistan in 1998 and fled to Australia on a boat in hopes of finding a safer and happier life for his family. He left behind a war stricken country, as well as 2 children and his pregnant wife. In order to keep his family safe, he had to run away. This was extremely difficult for him because he was leaving behind everything that mattered to him in the world, not knowing if he would ever see us again.
After surviving the dangerous journey to Australia, Dad would learn that the worst was not over yet. He was soon placed in a detention centre, where he remained for 7 months. Dad doesn’t like to talk about those 7 months. When we ask him to describe them, he just says that it was a dark time in his life, a very lonely time.
It was after six long years apart that our father was finally able to sponsor us to join him here.
It’s been 11 years since we’ve settled into this country and in these 11 years we’ve been blessed with two more brothers. Sohaila has completed her masters of teaching, Mahnaz is in her second year of journalism and our older brother Nasratullah is studying electrical engineering.
Every day we hear politicians in the Australian government talking about families, kids and young men in detention centres, as though they are a threat. We are spending billions of dollars on locking up people like us. Why? We wish that the people who are afraid of us would try to broaden their knowledge by speaking to us instead of shaping their perspective through the media. They would see that there is nothing to fear. They would see that these are people who simply want to live safe, dignified lives, and feel accepted and valued as part of a community.
We Hazaras are a minority group of Afghans who are targeted for being Shia Muslims and simply Hazara. In other parts of the world, the places where we live are constantly targeted and attacked. This occurs not only in Afghanistan, but also in other places where Hazaras thought they could seek refuge, like Pakistan. These attacks consist of bombs being placed in certain buses that Hazara people catch, or suicide bombers in Shia mosques, or even just picking Hazaras out randomly and shooting them dead, since we can easily be recognised. If you research this, you’ll find just how many Hazara genocides have occurred in the past year only, and how it has not been acknowledged or broadcasted at all.
We cannot emphasise how lucky we are to be where we are today. Australia is such a rich, fortunate country. We have the ability to help so many people – people like us who are fleeing harm, who just want to come to safety and lead fulfilling and productive lives.
It is very difficult to understand how a community that is as warm and generous as the Australian community can, at the same time, have places that are as horrifying as the detention centres. It is hard to understand why thousands of refugees who are finally accepted must then wait many years for their families to arrive. We cannot put into words how much damage and suffering this causes. We believe that we, the Australian community, can do better than this.
For as long as we live, we will remember that reunion in Sydney airport. We will remember it because it was the first time when we felt safe. It was the first time we felt like we could laugh, play and enjoy simply being together. It was the moment when we began living.
We pray for an Australia that lets other refugees do the same.
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