Betelhem Zeleke still doesn’t know why she was released from Brisbane immigration transit accommodation on 1 April 2017. After more than three years in detention – one in Nauru and two in Brisbane – the Ethiopian refugee was suddenly free to go: “They just told me: ‘Get out from [here].’ They released everyone, so I was the only one left.”
Zeleke was 21 when she fled Ethiopia in 2013 because of political unrest. She made her way to Indonesia and then left for Darwin by boat.
A harrowing six days followed. She was crammed on to a leaky old boat with 63 others. They were lashed by waves and driving rain. By the fifth day they’d run out of food, water and petrol and the terrified passengers were weak and dehydrated. Zeleke remembers spotting a shark close to the boat.
They were rescued by Australian Border Force the following night and taken to Darwin.
Some were transferred to Nauru. Zeleke remembers the scorching heat when she stepped off the plane. She had no idea where they were going as they bumped up a rocky road: “I feel like they’re taking us somewhere far away from the world, somewhere that’s surrounded by rock.”
The facilities at the camp were makeshift and still being built, and as the only Ethiopian refugee at the time she struggled to communicate. She was also one of the few Orthodox Christians: “My Christmas is different, my Easter is different, my happy new year is different too. It is too painful … I don’t have anyone to share my [holidays with] ... I just always cry or pray.”
She was only rarely allowed to call her family in Ethiopia and she found it difficult to explain the situation to them: “They always asking me: ‘What did you do?’ They thought [only] criminal go to jail.”
For more than a year she waited on Nauru having little information about how her application was progressing. Then in February 2015 she was granted refugee status.
She was transferred to Brisbane and held in detention for the next two years.
That was the worst part of her experience, she says. She was unwell and received medical attention at the Royal Brisbane hospital a few times, and being there was a relief from the trauma of being in immigration transit accommodation where she was surrounded by others who were affected by their indefinite detention.
Her roommate in Nauru and Brisbane was Hodan Yasin, the 21-year-old Somali woman who set herself on fire in May 2016. She remembers Hodan being forcibly taken from their room in Brisbane one night and transferred back to Nauru. A few days later she saw her friend on the news: “I thought she gonna die and all her stuff is in my room.”
A lonely time
Almost a year later Zeleke was free.
Those early months were spent in community detention in Brisbane but with few life skills she found the transition tough. She worked in a Gold Coast cosmetics factory but found it difficult to connect with those around her: “I can’t talk with people the way they talk, because mentally I was damaged for a while. I don’t like talking or just sitting with people. Especially I can’t sit with family because I remember my family.”
She moved to Melbourne to try to shake the memories associated with Brisbane and found a job working on the trams. Her colleagues were welcoming but she shared her story with only one: “When I told her I came from Nauru, she couldn’t control her tears.”
Melbourne feels like home to the 28-year-old – for now. She can eat Ethiopian food again and go to church, and she feels supported by the community. She lives in Sunshine West in a bridging house and regularly speaks at rallies about her experience in detention.
Every six months she has to renew her bridging visa at the local visa office. Because she came by boat at the wrong time she cannot apply for protection visas, even temporary ones. So for one day twice a year she is detained once more.
“I don’t understand, just to make us scared again ... to remind us,” she says. “We go at 8 o’clock, all day … and they lock us [up].”
Each time the officials remind her about her uncertain future: “[They say] you are illegal ... You don’t have any right to study; you don’t have any permit to go anywhere.”
Zeleke dreams of studying like her friends and longs to see her family in Ethiopia. But mostly she’d like to be treated like everyone else.
“I feel part of the community but on the other case I can’t compare myself with other people,” she says. “I feel like: ‘Am I illegal? Am I different?’… I wish we can get freedom with others.”
• Crisis support services can be reached 24 hours a day: Lifeline 13 11 14; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78; Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636
