On 19 October 2001, a woman gave birth on a sinking boat en route from Indonesia to Christmas Island. She was one of 421 people, including 146 children, 142 women and 65 men, who had boarded the boat the previous day in the Sumatran port of Lampung with hopes of being reunited with loved ones who had preceded them, and of beginning life anew in Australia. She was last seen, by survivors, drifting past with her baby attached by the umbilical cord.
Amal Hassan Basry, a survivor of the tragedy who now lives in Melbourne, says that at least three women gave birth as the boat sank. One of the mothers was just six months pregnant. The tragedy induced the births prematurely. Amal recalls the events of that day with great clarity. She knows the exact moment the boat capsized: ten past three in the afternoon. Many watches stopped at that time.
‘Because I was waiting for my death, I saw everything. I was like a camera,’ she tells me. ‘I can still hear the shouting, the screaming. I see the people going under, my son swimming towards me. Everything.’
More than one year later, the memory of the tragedy remains a raw wound. But before she recounts the story, Amal insists on telling me why she was so desperate to make the journey. ‘I want people to know why I stayed on the boat even when I saw it was very dangerous’, she says. ‘I want people to know who I am. Why I escaped from Iraq. Why I risked my life. Why I wanted to come to Australia. Maybe then they will understand.’
We meet in the living room of the Thornbury Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. It is a house of welcome, a place where we can talk in peace. I see the strain on Amal’s face and the lingering anguish in her eyes. As if sensing my thoughts, Amal says, ‘I’m a strong woman, believe me.’
Amal’s troubles began in 1980, when her husband, an engineer, was conscripted to fight in Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran. She left her job in the Bank of Iraq, in Baghdad, to look after their three young children in his absence. The eight-year war claimed an estimated one million lives.
In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and in 1991, at the height of the Gulf War, Amal’s 20-year-old brother, a civilian worker, was killed by an American