A year has passed since a boat carrying asylum
seekers crashed into the jagged cliffs off the coast of Christmas Island. The
boat, known as SIEV 221, crashed into the sharp rocks early in the morning of
December 15. 42 people survived but 50 drowned in the tragedy.
Among the survivors is Sayed
Hossien Hossieni. His wife, son and wife’s cousin were among the 50 who
drowned.
A year later, Hossien’s application for
refugee status was approved and he was granted a permanent protection visa but
he remains haunted by the deaths of his wife and son.
“The things I saw during the crash, the
memories of my wife, my kid . . . I can't get those out of my mind,” he said.
“I am living my own nightmare.”
He has not been able to find a job and lives
alone in a flat with nothing but some photocopied black and white photos of his
wife and child.
In November he tried to end his life and is
back in hospital again, still struggling to deal with his loss.
His wife was one of the 20 people whose bodies
were never found. This is particularly hard for Hossien. “I still feel my
wife's body -- because it wasn't recovered, I feel she is still there. When I
go out to visit people, I can't stay long -- I feel I have to get back home,
because Mariem will be waiting for me.”
The boat carrying Hossien and his family was spotted
by Christmas Island locals just after dawn on December 15 struggling in the
high seas. The Island’s port had been closed for days and the monsoon weather
was the worst seen in many years. The boat was headed straight towards the
Island. Had it then turned east it would have reached safe waters. Instead, it
turned west and was soon dangerously close to the cliffs.
SIEV 221 was an Indonesian fishing boat about
15 metres long. Before leaving Jakarta,
the asylum seekers from Iran and Iraq were told that the boat was comfortable,
safe and properly equipped. This was a lie. The only safety equipment on board
was 20 to 30 life jackets and the crew were fishermen who had never made the
journey before. There were 92 people on board. Another boat had collected the
captain as soon as they had entered Australian waters, leaving the asylum
seekers and inexperienced crew to make the most dangerous part of the journey
on their own.
Christmas Island locals watched horrified as
the boat was pushed towards the cliffs by the rough seas. They collected life
jackets and waited for the rescue boats to arrive. The hospital was on standby.
The boat crashed into the cliffs three times before it broke apart. People and
wreckage were thrown into the swirling water.
Hossien
remembers the chaos. “Before we hit the cliffs, I emptied a petrol drum and
offered it to my wife to hang on to, but she said, ‘You look after the kid’.”
But it was too late. “On hitting the rocks,
the planks cracked and slammed into people. About 40 to 70 people just tumbled
into each other. As I was trying to reach my wife's hand, with all the people
around we got separated,” he says.
Hossien made it to open sea and to the cliffs
where he tried to hang on to a rope thrown by locals. When he realised the
waves would crush him against the rocks he let go and swam back from the
cliffs. He managed to find a life jacket thrown into the water by the locals
and went to try to find his wife and child.
When
the rescue boats finally arrived they could not get close to the wreckage
in case they crushed people in the rough waves or crashed themselves. Instead
they got creative, attaching life jackets and life rings to ropes to get to
survivors. 41 people were pulled from the water and one man survived by jumping
onto the cliffs. Only 30 bodies were eventually recovered.
The survivors were taken to the Christmas
Island Detention Centre where they were kept until their refugee applications
were determined. A group of survivors, including Hossien, were briefly released
from detention to attend funerals for some of those who had died. Nine
bodies were returned to their families in Iran and Iraq for burials there.
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