More Reasons To Live

More Reasons To Live

By Paul McCann

In the second decade of the 21^st century war erupted in Syria. The revolution saw protests turn into slaughterhouses and civil war broke out.

For many people living in parts of the middle east all they wanted was peace and for those who wanted peace only a small number of people were able to find it and the only way that could be achieved was to escape the warzone as a refugee and if you were brave enough and had enough money there was a slim chance that you could secure a one way passage out from the warzone on a boat to Australia .

Some of those who tried they had to sell everything they had, others borrowed money in the hope they could find work in their new adopted home in Australia ’Then there were those who got halfway only to told they needed to pay more money to get to their destination. Then from the ones who made it to Australia a lot of those were placed into detention camps like prisoners. The arrival of illegal migrants grew every day, and they had to place them all  into camps.

Slowly the little boats began to arrive with many people on board . High over
head coastguard planes kept a watch on the coastline monitoring the boats and trying to prevent them from making it to shore , other boats were being turned away and sent in other directions  . It was chaos at sea and the numbers of illegal migrants  continued to rise . Border patrols and coastguard police were rounding up more and more new arrivals. Detention centers and refugee camps had to be built in Queensland and also on Western Australia to accommodate them all.  

So many were being scheduled for questioning and the language barrier became a problem . Australian immigration authorities were having great difficulty coping with the huge numbers of detainees in and outside the mainland and the boat people continued to arrive . The exodus was unmanageable and they eyes of the world were focused on how desperate these people where to find peace and start a new life . The Australian authorities were being very protective of who these new arrivals were because many of them could be terrorists in disguise.

There are so many sad stories however this story tells of the journey of Doctor Bob who left his family in Syria and made the journey alone to Australia. He managed to survive and found a new reason for him and his family to live out the rest of their lives in Australia.

He paid the price that was asked for the journey and arrived in a quiet location on the coast of Australia. Then those on the boat were collected and taken in the back of a truck to a regional place in New South Wales where they had a job in the fishing industry that paid minimal wages. Doctor Bob soon became a popular figure, helping many people who had become sick after their long journey on boats. As soon as he was recognized as being a doctor, the secret refugee community set him up in a makeshift consultation room which was an old wooden cabin that once was a boat shed.

Doctor Bob was able to help many people and in return people with a knowledge of migration law assisted him in securing a permanent visit. Now he had the ability to bring his family over from Jordan where they had been secretly hiding with some friends during the escalation of the war in Syria. Doctor Bob left Australia to be reunited with his family in the middle east and bring them to Australia to start a new life.  Together again with his family was the happiest day in his life and with the process on going for him to be a naturalized Australian citizen his family would also reap the benefits to live in peace in Australia. For the many who had tried only a small percentage of refugees made it and started a new live in Australia.

Doctor Bob was invited by the local government in his shire to speak to the local community about his experience and everyone who heard what he had to go through were amazed that he had survived; Now in his own practice in New South Wales Doctor Bob has seen bis children grown up and get married with little children of their own.

.By Paul McCann