The Journey To Freedom

CW: Mentions of War and Drowning

It all started 25 years ago. It was five years before I was born, during a period of three years of radio silence between my newly married parents. I don't know the exact details, nor the entire story, but I'll share what I've heard.

Both of my parents were born in Iraq. My mother left at a very young age and lived in Syria, then Iran, and later returned to Syria. She was forced to live in Iran because the borders were suddenly closed during the war. This scenario has repeated itself numerous times over the years due to wars, diseases, and international conflicts.

Shortly after getting married and having their first baby, my father decided to make the almost

impossible trip to seek refuge. The details from here are scarce, and we've been taught not to ask. We only know that it was about 18 months before he ended up anywhere, and that he eventually found himself in Australia. We know he travelled through Indonesia first. The boat trip he took to Australia ended in catastrophe, during which many of his friends drowned. Another event he doesn’t speak about, for valid reasons.

After spending several months in Australia at a refugee camp, he was taken to another refugee camp in Auckland, where he spent a year before being granted refugee status. About a year later, the radio silence between my parents ended. Dad showed up at Damascus Airport, called my mother, and asked her to pick him up. She was shocked and speechless—all those years of raising my older brother without him were about to come to an end.

My mother recalls those three years as a period of sadness, with my father presumed dead. Shortly after, the three of them moved to New Zealand, and my father finally started the life he had dreamt of after going through such extreme challenges to get there. I was born about a year and a half later—the first member of the family to be born outside of the Middle East. We spent the next seven years travelling, experiencing, and making the most of a journey of a lifetime.

My father lived in New Zealand for a total of nine years. He struggled with English, needing constant assistance communicating, and he still does to this day. He eventually returned to Iraq after the war ended, getting work on an oil rig (his Bachelor’s degree in Petroleum Engineering was of no use in New Zealand). He would visit us several times a year in New Zealand over the next four years. We moved to Australia in 2014 after my younger sister was born, and the rest of my family still live there to this day.

I decided to move back to New Zealand in 2022 to continue studying after high school—an LLB which I barely got accepted into. I wasn't able to get a student loan in Australia as I wasn't a citizen (a frustrating topic that needs another story of its own).

The experience of seeking asylum and immigration was harrowing for my father. He endured a great deal of hardship to secure a better life for me, my siblings, and my mother in New Zealand and Australia. Although his absence for four years was difficult, I cannot begin to fathom the mental toll his experiences took on him.

I will forever be grateful for his sacrifices to bring us here.