Abdul Aziz Adam on five years too many

As we mark five years too many of mandatory offshore processing, Abdul Aziz Adam shares his statement.

Five years of injustice.
Five years of trauma.
Five years of false imprisonment.

Who will be responsible for those years and why shall we pay the price for this cruel, heartless and dangerous policy that has no mercy to kids, women or men?

We are introduced to you in a way that produces animosity and fear in your mind, while the real picture of our lives is concealed and we don’t know how to get it back.

The history is just repeating itself once again in 2001 poor asylum seekers sought protection from Australia and they have sent them to Manus for six and half years. Don’t be surprised. Your government is well known for cruelty and heartlessness. They always enjoy keeping refugees as hostages.

“We are human beings, just like you, just like me. Let’s deal with the refugee crisis with humanity, with support and with compassion…”

Five years of trauma, unbearable suffering and unspeakable hardships, but hundreds of lives are still caught in political games and only God knows if we have any hope of finding relief from this relentless and undefinable long painful journey.

What we have been made to endure and lose all these years is incomprehensible. This harm continues to be inflicted and we do not know when it will end and how much more we will suffer. More people could even be killed on Manus. So far seven men have lost their lives.

We are human beings, just like you, just like me. Let’s deal with the refugee crisis with humanity, with support and with compassion to try to help people who are trying to get to safety, trying to help people who are stuck on Manus and Nauru prison camps, but recognise that Australia going to war on refugees creates a legacy of bitterness and problems.

There are hundreds of kids on Nauru, and in Australia from Nauru, who have been mentally, emotionally and physically scarred by horrible abusive living conditions. Nothing can give them back what they lost in that place.

Abdul Aziz Adam is a refugee detained on Manus Island by the Australian Government.

Take action

Stand with us to #EvacuateNow the 1,610 people including 123 children in offshore processing on Manus and Nauru. Conditions are critical. We must act now.