Since my big move down to Tamworth I've missed Armidale and all of its hilarious characters, so, I've managed to sneak up there for stories when I can.
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Recently I was in Armidale for a feature on the refugee resettlement - a story that's not unique to Armidale but has happened in an incredibly unique community.
Armidale is known, in my experience, for its wholehearted embrace of multiculturalism. Meeting with those who have come from unimaginable tragedy and having the opportunity to tell their stories (albeit through an interpreter, interesting!) was definitely one of my highlights of the year.
I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and has a prosperous New Year!
Refugees’ lives blown apart by war are rebuilt in Armidale
- Published: December 8, 2018
Hamoud Afret cannot write his own name.
School stopped being a priority when his father was killed in the 1980s war between Iraq and Iran.
Now, on the other side of the world, Hamoud hopes to give his family the security he was never afforded.
There are 18 cities in his home country, Iraq, and travelling between them was fraught with danger.
“It’s dangerous to travel. If you travel from city to city and you’re lucky, you won’t find a terrorist or ISIS or people who don’t like you,” Hamoud said.
Mass killings and abductions by terrorist group ISIS forced Yazidi people like Hamoud to flee into the Sinjar mountains, where hundreds were slaughtered.
Women and children were forced into sexual slavery by the terrorists, and it wasn’t safe to leave the confines of the village, Hamoud said with the help of an interpreter – he doesn’t speak a lick of English.
“If you are not lucky, you will find checkpoints and maybe they’ll kill you. The best scenario: you will get some slaps and go home,” he said.
“And the worst – chop the head.”
All government paperwork and IDs must be processed in Mosul, a major city north of Baghdad embattled in a bloody tug-of-war between ISIS and a US-led military coalition.
Hamoud feared for his life and would not go to Mosul for more than a decade.
A farmer by trade, he grew wheat and barley crops, onion, tomato, cucumber, eggplant and green beans in his home country.
When he first came to Armidale, he wasn’t fussed on the look of the place, and really struggled to cope with the overwhelming transition for 15 days.
“The place where I am now is beautiful, but changing the culture and the place, it’s a big challenge and that’s what I was worried about,” he said.
Hamoud and his family have felt more welcomed by the elderly community in Armidale, unable to connect with the city’s youth.
“The elderly people in the street, when we walk in they say hello, smile, sometimes they give us a lift. But the young people, nothing. They don’t say hi, nothing,” he said.
“I want people to understand we are just humans seeking for a life.”
Hamoud and his family were among 200 asylum seekers to arrive in Armidale with limited English and often nothing more than a suitcase.
In the weeks following their arrival, they were shown to furnished short-term housing close to town, and eventually they will learn about Australian law, their rights and responsibilities.
A case manager linked them with accommodation before they were registered with banks, Medicare, Centrelink, schools and the Adult Migrant English Program, and it is expected they will have long-term housing, employment and be able to speak sufficient English by the six-month mark.
All of them have witnessed horrors unimaginable to most, their ancient traditions, culture and religion under daily threat of extinction.
While that was happening thousands of kilometres away, Armidale woman Robin Jones relentlessly campaigned to save the lives of complete strangers.
Dr Jones has volunteered in African and Thai refugee camps and co-founded the settlement support group in Armidale.
“I advocated on every imaginable front, every committee I joined, every local, regional, state and national channel I advocated on,” Dr Jones said.
“I knew first-hand that every other area of Australia had some challenges, either employment or housing or local disquiet about people coming in – I knew Armidale had none of those.”
While Armidale is known for its four distinct seasons and an abundance of churches, the city has distinguished itself with an unusually multicultural society, with everything from jobs and haircuts to just a friendly cup of tea offered to the refugees freely by the community.
The horrific experiences of the families Dr Jones visits are beyond belief.
“ISIS currently is the major terror in their lives and the first thing they said to me was they want to be safe, because all their lives they have never felt safe,” she said.
“I’m a firm believer in multiculturalism. We are enriched by having people from other lands, with other practices and culture, I really believe that.”
Already culture is being shared: the Yazidis are teaching Dr Jones their traditional dance and she has helped them cook hot chips.
The Yazidis have been drawn to the comfort of familiarity, forming friendships with other persecuted families taking shelter in the town.
Resettlement can take anywhere from two to 10 years for most.
Before Zuhoor Khudhur came to Australia, her family was housed in a small apartment in Turkey.
Here she lives with her husband and two daughters, while her other children were resettled in Germany almost a decade ago and are married with children of their own.
To survive and keep busy, she ran a recycling plant with other displaced people in Turkey.
She’s bilingual and rumoured to be a fantastic cook.
She speaks, with audible trepidation, in Kurdish-Kumanji.
“ISIS attacked our village,” she said.
“Armidale is better in every aspect. It can’t be compared to the bad situation in Iraq.
“We think the community here understands our case and what happened to us.”
Like many of the refugees in Armidale, she’s carefully optimistic about her future.
In her eyes there is both fragility and strength.