Iqrar Hussain sought asylum in Australia after Taliban attacks on his village on the Pakistani-Afghan border – but ended up in Papua New Guinea where he and other refugees say they feel unsafe.
In recent weeks, the Pacific nation has been rocked by deadly riots that killed 15 people, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency.
For Mr Hussain, who has been surviving precariously on the kindness of friends, strangers and advocacy groups such as the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre (ASRC) and Brigidine Sisters in Australia, the spate of violent looting left him and his family shaken. “I was really scared for my family and my kids were scared. I would stay up the whole night until 6 am and then I’d go to sleep,” he told AAP from Port Moresby via an interpreter.
Mr Hussain, 48, spent six years in detention on Manus Island and about four years in Port Moresby.
The minority Shia Muslim jeweller left his country because of the sectarian bloodshed in the unstable Parachinar region in 2013, travelling by boat via Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. He arrived on Christmas Island and was transferred to PNG as part of Australia’s offshore detention program.
Only in the last year has he been able to reunite with his family through funds disbursed by the Australian government.
“There were militant fights between the Taliban and sometimes between Shia and Sunni where a lot of people were killed and left dead on the roads,” he said.
“In the village that I lived in there were constantly missiles fired and rockets launched on us by Taliban-affiliated groups.” He was recently accepted as a refugee to the United States but the application for his four children and wife has been slow and arduous. The Melbourne-based ASRC warned in September that dozens of refugees including Mr Hussain, who depend on the PNG government for accommodation in Port Moresby have either been evicted or warned their removal is imminent.
They have been in limbo since the 2017 closure of the Manus Island regional processing centre, which Australia operated as part of its offshore program.
The Australian government has previously said it is not responsible for 70 asylum seekers in PNG, since the Pacific nation’s government assumed full and independent management of service delivery to them in January 2022.
Last week the PNG government said an Australian-funded scheme designed to support refugees relocated from Manus Island to Port Moresby before they are resettled in other countries is being forensically investigated by consultancy firm KPMG. It follows serious allegations a woman arrested over an alleged $15 million drug importation attempt had links to companies in the program.
The funding is allocated towards accommodation, food, medical services and other essentials for the dozens of remaining refugees but Mr Hussain says they have been left waiting. With no steady income, he and his family are at risk of starvation.
“The Australian government would pay us 1000 kina ($407) a week plus some vouchers but since the arrangement has fallen under PNG we don’t have any vouchers or food allowance,” he explained. “It’s very difficult… I have some friends here who help me by lending me some money but I now have significant debt of 40-50,000 kina ($16-20,000).”
Mr Hussain, who suffers from several debilitating illnesses including heart disease and hematuria (blood in urine) is hoping for an imminent resolution to his case.
“I would prefer that we could be settled in Australia, that’s my first preference because I would be safer there but if it doesn’t happen then I would love to leave here and be settled in the US,” said
“This torture of waiting has been going on for long and we hope it will stop. We are hoping for some good news soon.”