“Can I come with you? I want to come home.”
There are no words to express my heartbreak at hearing four-year-old Kopika say these words on Tuesday. After one week and 16 precious visiting hours with Priya, Nades and the girls, it was time to leave Christmas Island.
Exactly two years ago today, Nades was up early, getting ready for his job at the meatworks. Priya was warming a bottle for the baby. The girls were asleep in their beds.
Priya and Nades came to Australia legally seeking peace and safety, and they found it in Biloela. Before landing his job at the meatworks, Nades volunteered with Vinnies and pushed trolleys at Woolworths. Priya joined church groups and took her curries up to the local hospital to say “thank you” to the doctors for caring for her two gorgeous, QLD-born daughters.
Then on 5 March 2018, two years ago today, Border Force came for this family at dawn. They gave them 10 minutes to pack. Neighbours heard Priya scream with fear. And then they were gone.
Today, will you tell the politicians paid to represent you that after two years, enough is enough?
My husband Alan and I arrived on Christmas Island on Tuesday last week. Once past the detention centre guards and their wand scanner, we were welcomed with ginger tea and Nades’ freshly-baked banana cake, made in the detention facility’s tiny kitchenette.
Priya and Nades proudly showed us the many hundreds of Christmas cards they had received from across Australia - one even came with genuine Biloela gum leaves!
During our week on Christmas Island, Priya and Nades cooked up a storm for us at every opportunity. When Priya’s close friend Vashini arrived from Queensland with only 30 minutes left of an allotted two hour visit due to a delayed flight, Priya still insisted on whipping up an omelette sandwich for her dear friend.
With their warm welcome and hospitality, Priya and Nades helped us forget we were meeting in a detention centre 5,000km from Biloela. For precious minutes, we were just like any group of friends enjoying a meal together. It was all the more shocking when the guards came and told us to leave.
As we drove away from the detention centre, the uncertainty and anxiety of not knowing the fate of our precious friends sat beside the memories of that terrible time two years ago.
But I know one thing, and I’ve known it all along - we will never stop fighting to bring Priya, Nades, Kopika and Tharunicaa home to Biloela, where they belong.
With hope,
Angela