Ali’s wife believes he is living out his dreams of a comfortable life in Australia, waiting to be reunited with her.
He has provided her with snippets of this beautiful lie, to give her hope and so she does not fret about his future.
But the truth is for the past 10 years, he has been a refugee stuck in the Pacific Island nation of Nauru.
He has watched as hundreds of other asylum seekers left Nauru to be resettled in Australia.
The heartbreak of feeling forgotten, and the uncertainty of his future, has been his burden alone.
“My wife thinks I’m still in Australia, and I have a beautiful life. That I’ve been in very good condition,” says Ali, who requested that his full name and nationality not be published.
“She [doesn’t] know that I’m in Nauru. I don’t want to tell her, otherwise, she’ll get upset.
“When she’s upset, she cuts her hand because she misses me after 10 years apart.”
Next week, Ali will fly to Australia as the federal government plans to empty the island of refugees by 30 June.
In recent months, there have been regular transfers of asylum seekers from Nauru to hotel detention in Australia, according to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) and Refugee Action Coalition. From hotel detention – often in Brisbane – most are being granted bridging visas and encouraged to find jobs, the organisations say.
But despite their transfers, Australia will retain an “enduring” capacity for offshore detention on the island indefinitely.
Nauru and Australia signed a memorandum of understanding in 2021, agreeing to an “enduring form of offshore processing” on the Pacific island state, and both major political parties have committed to maintaining an offshore processing capability.
The government has confirmed that even with no asylum seekers on Nauru, maintaining facilities for offshore processing will continue to cost at least $350m a year as a “contingency”.
The news provides little comfort for Ali, who is still waiting to be resettled in Canada.
“When is this going to end? I just want to have a peaceful life with my wife. I am getting old day by day,” he says.
While living in community detention, Ali has held down as many jobs as possible to send money abroad to his family – working in restaurants, as a security guard, as a glassmaker and at a mobile phone shop.
“In Nauru, your life is only 21km. You can’t go more than that,” he says.
“I don’t remember sleeping more than eight hours in 10 years … the situation is very hard missing my family.”
Ali – who fled his home country when he was 23 years old – says he now feels more like a scarecrow than a human being. His years-long presence in the Pacific Island nation was used to frighten others about what could happen if they try to seek safety in Australia.
During his first year on the island, Ali says he was forbidden from venturing out of the refugee camp. Alongside hundreds of asylum seekers, he slept in a mouldy tent in the oppressive heat, with limited access to drinking water.
As the years stretched on, the uncertainty took a physical and mental toll on many. There were suicides, sexual violence, self-harm attempts and child abuse.
Omid Masoumali, 23, died in 2016 after setting himself on fire. Fariborz K, 26, was found dead in his tent in 2018, reportedly by suicide.
Phones were smuggled into camps to uncover the atrocities, as the Nauru government refused almost all media requests for Australian journalists to visit the country.
The future is no clearer for Iranian refugee, Hossein Latifi, who was released from Melbourne’s Park Hotel more than a year ago.
Latifi spent six years detained in Nauru before being transferred to Australia for medical treatment and then shuttled around to different detention hotels.
He witnessed hunger strikes, suicide and at his darkest moments, attempted to harm himself.
“In Nauru, it was heartbreaking seeing kids in there who were four, five years old. My mind just blew up,” he says.
“I thought how can they do this to innocent people, to family and kids who come here for safety … that trauma will be with you for ever.”
At one hotel, Latifi says he was served maggots for dinner and lived through a fire, and a Covid-19 outbreak at another hotel.
He now works in construction and spends most of his time at the gym, mending his mind and body from years of trauma. With no clarity about his resettlement to New Zealand, Latifi is forced to renew his bridging visa every six months.
“Sometimes we give up but I did my best to stay positive and fight for my rights, my freedom and my life.”
“It made me tough, it made me believe in myself … But I don’t anyone to face what I’ve faced. It’s un-human.”
A spokesperson for the minister for home affairs, Clare O’Neil, said it was “the longstanding policy of the government not to comment on matters relating to Operation Sovereign Borders.”
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org
