In the dark of night in Kabul, Mohammad says goodbye to his wife and young children.
He is embarking on a dangerous journey to Australia and has no idea when he will next be able to hug them.
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It ended up being more than a decade.
As a Hazara man — part of an ethnic minority in Afghanistan — Mohammad Zaki Rezayi says he had no choice but to flee after his brother was killed by the Taliban.
“We are not safe, we are very scared, and we have to leave the country to go somewhere to be safe,” he says.
“[I want] my family [to] be safe, and that’s why I leave the country and came to Australia.”
Mohammad says people smugglers sold Australia to him as a “humanitarian” country.
“They said … Australia is a safe country, and they are accepting refugees, and they maybe [can] help you,” he says.
He leaves with a plan to resettle and have his family join him later — a process he thinks could take a few years at most.
In late 2012, cooped up on a small boat with more than 60 people, he sets sail from Indonesia to that promised haven.
About a week in, they are intercepted by Australian authorities.
Mohammad is taken to Christmas Island Detention Centre, before being transferred to Curtin Immigration Detention Centre in Western Australia.
He is granted a temporary bridging visa early in 2013, and is freed to live in the community.
While it’s a reprieve, Mohammad will spend years in limbo, stuck in a cycle of reapplying for temporary asylum visas, each time having to recount the traumatic circumstances that brought him here.
Those visas allow no prospect of his family being able to join him in Australia.
And he risks losing his visa if he returns to Afghanistan or goes to any other country without government approval.
“I lose my hope … and I think [it’s] not coming [until] that day [that] I have my family with me,” he says.
Mohammad starts off living in Melbourne, before moving to Tasmania.
He settles in Hobart’s industrial outskirts and buys a car-wrecking business.
His home is now a pokey one-bedroom apartment above the wrecking yard.
Working keeps Mohammad distracted, and he saves up any money he can to send back to his family.
But no matter how many cars he guts, he can’t dull the ache of separation.
Finishing up for the day and climbing up the steel staircase, Mohammad wants to open the door to his family.
“When [a worker] arrives to the house, his tea is ready, his coffee is ready, his juice is ready, and his family says ‘You’re welcome from the work.'”
“And I’m still here, going down, coming up,” he says.
He’s missed so much — birthdays, anniversaries, his children’s firsts.
His three sons and a daughter are growing up.
They are now adolescents and young adults.
“Life is going and not coming back,” Mohammad says.
“Twelve years is not a short time.”
Despite the distance, he finds solace in talking to them most days.
He often video calls his wife Roqia, daughter Adila, and sons Mohammad Sadiq, Komail and Rehmatullah.
They make what they can of the situation, huddling around a phone screen and spending time together.
On birthdays, he says his family bring out a cake.
“They [put] my picture next to the cake,” he says.
“Around [their] father, they cut the cake.”
Mohammad is determined to show fortitude.
“I’m trying to be strong because I’m always thinking if I’m not strong … I [will] lose my life and also lose my family’s life,” he says.
When he hangs up, he’s alone.
Walking the streets, Mohammad is constantly reminded of what he’s going without.
“When I see someone with family, I’m so excited. ‘Oh he’s got a family, he’s got a wife, he’s got a kid, he’s living with family,'” he says.
“But when I’m thinking about myself, I’m very sad … and I ask myself: ‘Why I’m very bad luck?'”
Things get worse.
In August 2021, the Taliban swarms Kabul.
After two decades, United States-led foreign forces withdraw from the country.
Their efforts have done little to quash the militant group, and the local Afghan government and military quickly crumble.
Memories of a violent and oppressive regime are front of mind for many Afghans.
Many desperately try to escape, some even sprinting up a tarmac, clinging to a departing US plane.
Once again, women are stripped of freedoms. Girls aren’t allowed to study beyond primary school, and women are banned from working most jobs.
Women can’t travel more than 72 kilometres without being accompanied by a male relative.
Hundreds of Hazara families are reportedly ordered to leave their homes and farmlands.
A brutal history, including suicide bombings and massacres, doesn’t feel so distant.
It leaves Mohammad filled with dread, his future in Australia still not guaranteed.
He says the Taliban came to his family home.
“My family was very scared,” he says.
“If the Taliban knows you’ve got someone over there in [another] country, they are not that happy. They get someone to hit, to kill, to get family, to get the money [I send over], that’s why my family was not safe, and they are scared … and hiding.”
Desperate, Mohammad turns to the Tasmanian Refugee Legal Service.
“I’m trying to find someone … anyone to help me,” he says.
Lawyer Patrick O’Connor and his team want to do just that.
They meet in the legal service’s office.
“He really didn’t have much hope that he would ever be able to get his family here, and the separation would be potentially forever,” Patrick says.
The team looks at the options, but the grim reality is none of the pathways will work for Mohammad.
Mohammad has gone from a Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) to a Safe Haven Enterprise Visa (SHEV), which grant three and five years at a time, respectively.
He isn’t eligible for any other visa.
“It meant that he didn’t have the same rights as anyone with a permanent visa had and that also meant that he didn’t have the right to apply for his wife and children to come with him,” Patrick says.
Mohammad is the human face of an intense political issue that has lingered for years.
“Stop the Boats” is a mantra of Tony Abbott’s 2013 political campaign.
As soon as his Coalition government is sworn in, military-led Operation Sovereign Borders is implemented in a bid to stop people smuggling and discourage people from risking their lives at sea.
Australian waters are patrolled, and unauthorised boats intercepted and turned around.
Arrivals significantly taper off.
Under the Coalition no permanent visa will be issued to any of the 30,000 illegal boat arrivals already waiting in Australia for a decision on their claim — like Mohammad — even if they are found to be a genuine refugee.
In February 2023, the new Albanese Labor government enacts an election promise that’s a game changer for Mohammad.
It announces 19,000 refugees who arrived in Australia before Operation Sovereign Borders began will be eligible for a permanent visa.
Those already holding a TPV or SHEV, like Mohammad, can apply to transition to a Resolution of Status (RoS) visa.
It offers rights and benefits such as social security payments, higher education assistance and access to the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
And, crucially, it means family members can be sponsored to come to Australia.
While it’s a lifeline for thousands of asylum seekers, roughly 12,000 others who arrived at the same time as Mohammad are not eligible for permanency.
Many are on bridging visas while they appeal their rejected protection claims — refugee advocates argue the assessment process that knocked them back was “arbitrary”, and many had strong claims for asylum.
With the new policy change, the Coalition accuses Labor of dismantling Operation Sovereign Borders, and enlivening opportunities for people smugglers.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refutes this, saying the government will continue being “tough on borders, without being weak on humanity”.
Back in Hobart, Patrick is “overwhelmed with happiness”, knowing what it could mean for his client.
The team gets Mohammad a permanent visa within months, and then immediately sets to work on his family’s case for reunification.
They see a change in Mohammad.
He has hope.
“I’d seen the suffering that he had been through over a long time. We got to know each other very well over those couple of years, and I could see the pain he [had been] in,” Patrick says.
“I could see the lift in him.”
In March 2024, an email drops into Patrick’s inbox.
‘Application Status: Granted,’ it says.
He then gets to make a life-changing phone call.
He can hear the relief in Mohammad’s voice.
“I asked [Patrick] three, four times … ‘This is right? My family got a visa? They are coming?'” Mohammad says.
“He said: ‘Yes, yeah’
“And I asked: ‘My family got a visa? It’s granted? Confirmed, granted, you sure?’
“He said, ‘Yes’.
“Straight away I call my wife and my big son, ‘Congratulations, you got your visa, and you have to come in Australia and see me,'” Mohammad says with a chuckle.
His wife is in disbelief.
“Are you right? You’re OK? It’s right?” she asks him.
“And I’m saying, ‘Yes, it’s right.'”
Now with his family on the way, Mohammad’s one-bedroom flat in the wreckers’ yard won’t do.
He busies himself preparing for their arrival, trading in his navy sedan for a van.
He picks up the keys to a more spacious rental property, what he hopes will be a family home.
He unlocks the front door and walks around the empty space, light pouring in.
In late April, after a restless night’s sleep, the big day finally arrives.
Accompanied by friends carrying flowers, he walks through the doors into a crowded Hobart Airport.
He’s smiling from ear to ear, overcome with excitement.
No words can adequately describe what he’s feeling.
“I’m very, very happy,” is about all he can manage.
He rushes through security, getting to the gate with little time to spare.
He’s jittery and pacing in anticipation.
And then he sees them.
He steps towards them and his eldest son, Mohammad Sadiq, collapses into his arms.
One after another, Mohammad embraces his children and wife, holding them, touching them.
It’s the moment he’s dreamt about for more than a decade.
He leads his family to the main arrivals and introduces them to his friends.
They cry, smile, hug, share this significant moment.
Mohammad leaves the airport with his family, ready to navigate their life together.
A month in, they are settling in to their new normal.
“[It’s] completely changed [my] life to be honest,” Mohammad says.
“When [I] lived alone, it was so hard, but now I’m very happy.”
He appreciates that at the end of his workday, he arrives home and there they all are, ready to have dinner together.
Now when he sees people with their families, he no longer feels a pang of sadness.
Mohammad is excited to see the world open for his children, especially for his daughter.
“In Afghanistan … they [were] at home … no cause, no school, no university, everything is flat,” he says.
“Up to them … doctor, or engineer, or mechanic or whatever they like, but I’m happy, I’m just happy they [can] study.”
In late May, Mohammad brings his family to the legal service to meet Patrick and his team.
He comes to thank them for their help and hard work.
It’s a case Patrick will never forget.
“It does show the impact that immigration laws have on people’s lives, both positive and negative,” he says.
“I’m sure we’ll be friends for a long time.”
As for Mohammad, he has a simple hope.
“I’m very happy and I wish [for] everyone [to] live with family all together,” he says.
Credits
Reporting/digital production: Bec Pridham
Photography/videography: Maren Preuss , Ebony ten Broeke & Peter Curtis
Illustrations/video editing: Magie Khameneh
Digital editor: Daniel Miller