Seena Akhlaqi Sheikhdost has become the face of all the refugees, Iranian and non-Iranian, trying to get away from their homelands but finding tragedy within sight of Australia.
Thirty to 50 Iranians and Iraqis died December 15 when their boat crashed on rocks off Australia’s Christmas Island.
Two months later, there was a Christian funeral for a family of four and their aunt as well as a Muslim funeral for two babies and a father on February 15. Twenty-two asylum-seekers were flown to the mainland to attend, creating much ruckus among the politicians of Australia who disagreed on whether the expenses were warranted and what comes next in the story of these people, who are widely viewed as gate-crashers in Australia.
Among those buried was the father of nine-year-old Iranian Seena, who also lost his mother and brother when the boat in which they were seeking to reach Australia broke up. The orphan has become the face of the tragedy.
Refugee advocates and some officials have sought expedited handling of the survivors’ cases, particularly for Seena, but just handling the burials became a two-month endurance process. They should have been buried sooner, said Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul. “The way the Australian government has treated these people is shabby beyond belief. There is no question of identification. There is no investigation, that means some of these people could have been dealt with properly much more earlier.” Instead, the burial was two months after death.
The process has been beset by haggling. Australians have disagreed sharply, with many questioning the government spending $320,000 to flying relatives to the funerals in Sydney.
Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said, “The government had the option of having these services on Christmas Island. If relatives of those who were involved wanted to go to Christmas Island, like any other Australian who wanted to attend a funeral service in another part of the country, they would have made their own arrangements to be there.”
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott also commented that it “seems a bit unusual” that the government would pay so much to fly the asylum seekers to the funerals.
In contrast, other officials cited the need for compassion. “I would never seek to deny a parent or a child from saying goodbye to their relative,” said Senior Liberal MP Joe Hockey. “No matter what the color of your skin, no matter what the nature of your faith, if your child or a father has died, you want to be there for the ceremony to say goodbye.… I think we, as a compassionate nation, have an obligation to ensure that we retain our humanity during what is a very difficult policy debate.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin said, “These may not be folk who are known to anybody in Australia, but they are human beings. They are part of God’s creation and therefore every person should be treated with utmost respect.”
Nevertheless, the asylum seekers were only permitted a day in Sydney before being flown, with an unplanned stop and delays along the way due to weather, back to the detention center on Christmas Island. Family members of the detainees who came to say goodbye the day after the funerals were told their relatives had already left.
Refugee advocate Jamal Daoud of the Social Justice Network claimed their return was conducted harshly with security guards at the Detention Center in Sydney threatened asylum-seekers with “electric batons” and dragged them from their beds at 5a.m. His accusations were denied by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, which said they “are simply not correct.”
“The department and our detention services provider treat our clients with dignity and respect,” commented a department spokesman.
Several advocates instead lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission asking why the government had chosen to return the asylum-seekers to Christmas Island at all, and especially so soon after the funerals. “The government should consider that according to their culture they should be allowed seven days to stay in Sydney with their families at least,” said Imam Younes al-Bashi Muzafi, who presided over the Muslim funeral service. He added that “Australia should give special consideration to [Seena] because he is an unaccompanied minor and he lost his whole family. Australia should remember its belief in the ‘fair go’ and let this boy stay in Australia.”
Stephen Blanks, who is one of the lawyers representing Seena, said after the funeral, “We would say the [immigration] department should respect the rights of this child, the rights which Australia has signed up to in the international conventions.…
“The child has got extensive family networks in Sydney and the situation this child faces back on Christmas Island is dire. [The facilities] are not suitable for children, particularly children who’ve experienced trauma as this child has, losing both his parents,” he added. Among those who agreed with Blanks are Christmas Island’s shire [county] President Gordon Thomson and the chairwoman of the federal government’s immigration detention health advisory group, psychiatrist Louise Newman.
Not only is there a lack of proper mental health professionals on the island to care for all the traumatized asylum-seekers, but also “the most damaging thing is to have them on the island which is a clear reminder of their trauma on a daily basis,” said Dr. Newman. Children like Seena are at “huge long-term risk of an ongoing mental disorder and neurodevelopmental problems.”
Thomson said Seena was “in a terrible way” on the island. “I understand he goes to the gate every time a bus bringing a new group of refugees to Christmas Island turns up at the detention center. He is waiting at the gate for his mother and father,” commented Thomson.
With that in mind, the government’s actions in bringing the survivors directly back after the funerals were detrimental, said Dr. Newman. ‘’To give them a tantalizing taste [of contact] with their families and community and then say, ‘OK, that’s enough, you’re going to have another separation from people who care about you’ —they become despairing,” she said.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, who was supportive of the costs for taking the asylum-seekers to the Sydney funerals, justified the decision to return Seena to the island by saying, “The advice to me was that it would be better not to break him up from the other family members who’ve been looking after him on Christmas Island and his aunty, his cousins, etc. who he’s bonded with over the last couple of months, but to keep them together and then to move them to the community. The advice to me is that this is the best way to move forward.”
Seena had been cared for in detention by his mother’s sister, who arrived in another asylum boat, five days after the fatal crash, along with her husband and two small children. Other family members living in Australia, however, had long suggested their willingness to help. “We are more than happy to take responsibility for him,” said his cousin Jaffar-Ali Alghban, adding that Seena’s aunt was also grieving and not in a proper psychological state to give him the support that he needed.
Seena spent most of his days in the detention facility alone as he was not permitted to go to school for several weeks with the other detained children because of “competing priorities” in helping him adjust to his new life, even though other orphans and his cousin went to school.
Bowen conceded that Seena needed to be moved into the community, but despite a policy introduced in October to remove children and families from detention quickly, Seena’s release took much longer than advocates hoped. “You need to establish the appropriate accommodation to look after them and the appropriate psychological care on a case-by-case basis and that applies very much to him,” said Bowen.
Seena and his aunt and family were released this week to West Sydney after accommodations near his other family were made. Some critics doubt the minister’s comments, saying Seena’s release last week as a direct result of the pressure created from the complaint to the Human Rights Commission about Seena’s treatment.
Regardless, his extended family was very pleased about the announcement. ‘’All our concern is about Seena and his future. He needs to settle in and recover. We are happy that Seena is back. He needs to be treated by doctors,’’ said Alghban.
Seena, along with two other orphans from the boat tragedy who are to be placed in community care on the mainland, will be allowed to stay permanently in Australia, confirmed Bowen. His aunt’s immigration status has not been determined.