Leader
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
The family of four arrived in Australia two months ago after spending the past 10 years in a Kenyan refugee camp after fleeing Somalia in 1999.
The family is being hosted by Eltham’s Miranda Armstrong, a volunteer with the asylum seeker advocacy group, Sanctuary Victoria.
It was through this group that the Suufi family got an interest-free loan for the plane flights to Australia, which they will repay once settled so the process can start for another family.
Bakar, 18, and his 12-year-old sister, Ummi, are enrolled in an English language course.
Their mother, Amna, cares for her 28-year-old intellectually disabled daughter, Maryan.
While Bakar enjoys the kind faces and leafy surrounds of Eltham, the trauma of their homeland is only the flick of a switch away.
“When I go to sleep it is like a movie in my head,” he said.
“I get scared off the dark because I think thieves might come and steal from the house.”
Bakar’s fears are born out of real tragedy.
Back in Somalia thieves dug under a house where the family was sheltering and shot Bakar’s uncle.
Maryan, who witnessed the killing, never recovered, and has since begun displaying symptoms of an intellectually disability that is yet to be diagnosed.
“To be here with no gun shots, no thieves and with kind, honest people ... it is a blessing,” Amna said.