This was published 3 years ago
Sydney woman fears she will never see her husband again
By Anna Patty
Fatima fears she will never see her husband again after his two attempts to escape from Kabul in Afghanistan were violently aborted.
It has been more than a year since the couple last hugged each other. With the August 31 evacuation deadline looming, Fatima, who lives in Sydney’s west, worries he won’t get out.
Her husband is one of 200 people in Kabul who Sydney migration lawyer Anna Ryburn is desperately trying to help get to Australia. She shares Fatima’s fears and says his life will be at risk because he is part of the Hazara religious minority the Taliban has persecuted.
Fatima fears she will never see her husband again.Credit: Nick Moir
She said Fatima’s husband had ticked all the boxes required by the Australian government in their visa application. The Herald has not published the names of the couple to protect their safety.
“He’s not just a random Afghan at risk from the Taliban, he is the spouse of an Australian who has done all the checks,” she said. “Why would he not be part of the rescue mission?”
The couple first met as children in Afghanistan and have been waiting for more than two years for the Department of Foreign Affairs to process the husband’s spouse visa application. They now feel desperate that their time is running out as they cling to each minute they connect on the telephone.
After his two attempts to escape Kabul were aborted at the airport where the Taliban struck him with an iron pole, Fatima’s husband is fearful of risking his life a third time.
Fatima said her husband went to Kabul airport’s north gate on Saturday after he received a call from DFAT asking him to come. But he wasn’t allowed in because he did not have a visa. He told her that when he arrived, he caught the eye of an Australian soldier and explained his situation and that DFAT had called him. The soldier spoke to a superior but did not return and would no longer make eye contact with him.
“They didn’t allow him to go inside because he didn’t have a visa,” she said. “And now he went home again. DFAT contacted him as well and told him to come to the airport. He went there so many times until he got to the gate and the Australian soldiers turned him away.”
Ms Ryburn, who runs Ryburn Migration in Merrylands, said she has received regular phone calls from clients in Afghanistan telling her they have been stuck in violent crowds at the airport. Many, particularly men, had been turned away or were struggling with instructions from the federal government.
“There is no system for them,” she said.
Ms Ryburn said soldiers had randomly helped some women and children trying to get to Australia, but many had been blocked. She feared men were automatically being rejected as a potential security risk.
The Department of Home Affairs referred the Herald to DFAT. DFAT did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment.
World Vision has urged the federal government to open its doors to more Afghan refugees following the fall of Kabul, as it did in the 1970s after the fall of Saigon in South Vietnam.
World Vision has called on the government to create a one off intake of 20,000 extra humanitarian places to protect vulnerable Afghans. Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser had allowed more than 50,000 Vietnamese to settle in Australia after the Vietnam War.
Tim Costello, the executive director of Christian social justice organisation Micah Australia, said churches of all denominations including Catholic, Pentecostal and Anglican, supported the call to increase Australia’s intake of refugees from Afghanistan by 20,000 places.
He said the federal government had broken with the Menzies government tradition of welcoming hundreds of thousands of refugees to Australia. Canada and Britain have promised 20,000 places for Afghans. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced Australia would accept an initial humanitarian intake of 3000 Afghans over the next year.
“With five days to go the number one priority is to get everyone out that we can,” Mr Costello said. “After the 31st it is not going to be possible.”
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