Rohullah fled Afghanistan travelling across the globe before arriving in Australia, eventually settling in the small regional city of Swan Hill in Victoria’s northwest.
Now he is embarking on 2000 km bike ride, averaging 100 to 180km per day over 20 days hoping to educate people along the way.
“Hopefully I arrive alive in Canberra,” he laughed.
Rohullah is riding to raise awareness for refugees and asylum seekers in Australia.
Although the ride will at times be gruelling and punishing, Rohullah said it is nothing compared to the Australian government’s punishment of refugees in detention centres.
When Rohullah arrived in Australia three years ago, he was placed in detention and given a number he still remembers – LYN072.
He said he would like to meet with Prime Minister Tony Abbot to ask him some questions, ‘face-to-face’.
“Why are you sending asylum seekers to Nauru and Christmas Island?” he said.
“What is the meaning of human rights and democracy in Australia?”
Born in a small village in Afghanistan, Rohullah grew up in Ghazni city in the eastern part of Afghanistan.
At the age of fourteen he fled the war torn country to find safety. His journey took him to Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Singapore, Malaysia and eventually Indonesia where he said he attempted to seek legal entry to Australia.
“But unfortunately I was waiting for UNHCR for 14 months in Indonesia,” he said.
“Each six months someone would ring me from UNHCR and just update my ID card and that’s it.”
So he took the perilous journey by boat to Australia, along with 85 people including women and children.
“It was 14 days and 14 nights on the water, on the ocean,” Romullah said.
“Each 24 hours we had a small biscuit and a small bottle of water and that’s it.”
They were eventually intercepted by the Australian navy.
“I was just crying, I said, ‘Thanks God, I am still alive I can help my family’.”
His first port of call in Australia was a detention centre in Darwin where he spent three- months after which he was moved to another detention centre in Perth, before winding up in Adelaide on a bridging visa.
Eventually he contacted a friend in Swan Hill where he now lives, working as a landscape gardener at a golf country club.
After initially having his application for refugee status rejected he sought independent legal counsel and last month, following an interview with RRT Refuge Review Tribunal, he was finally accepted as a refugee in Australia.
Despite being happy with the decision Rohullah is still frustrated.
“But still I’m not allowed to bring my family here; still I’m not allowed to visit with my family in Afghanistan,” he said.
He has left behind his five brothers and one sister, his parents having been killed during the war by the Taliban.
Rohullah is at pains to understand these restrictions.
“Any refugees coming to Australia from any country, they are not angry people, they are homeless, they are countryless, coming to this rich country, this lucky country, it doesn’t matter if it was 100 years ago or 40 or 50 year ago, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
“Refugees come to Australia to make a better Australia…. just like the Afghan cameleers did more than 100 years ago,” he said.
Source: ABC
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