Kareem* “We just want to get citizenship, to know we are ok in this country – to know we are safe. This is my country now. It is a good country.” I am a Palestinian man born in Syria as a refugee. All my life people would tell me – “You are Palestinian. You don’t belong here. Go back to where you are from.” But I can’t go to Palestine because I don’t have anything there. All my life I have belonged nowhere. I am getting old and yet I still have no country. One day I hope I may be considered Australian – to be given a chance here. My wife is Syrian. We met in Syria. It wasn’t easy – Palestinians in Syria do not have the same rights as citizens. Some people don’t like Palestinians, they tell us we don’t not belong. We married and had our first child there. Then the war started. It was terrible in Syria. The bombing. The fear. We were not safe. It was no longer safe in the only country I had ever known. And yet, as a Palestinian, I have no other country I can go to. Who will accept me, my family? Who will keep us safe? We fled to Thailand and eventually made our way to Australia by boat. It was six days at sea with our four children, and my wife was pregnant with our fifth. Can you imagine how scary that was? How we feared for our children? But what choice did we have? We came with nothing – just the clothes we were wearing. My brother came with us. When we arrived, he was taken to Nauru. The guards said he was a single man so must go to Nauru. They wouldn’t recognise that he was part of our family. Every day I would ask the guards on Christmas Island – “Where is he? Where is my brother?” They told me nothing. After almost one year of pressuring him to return to Syria, he was taken back. But of course, he could not go back – he is a refugee! We fled because we are not safe. So after the Australian government tried to return him to danger, he made his way to Europe where he now lives. My son became very unwell on the boat journey. As soon as we got off the boat at Christmas Island he was taken to hospital. My wife was also very unwell, she was bleeding and we were worried about the baby. We told the guards and they dismissed her – said “Just go have a lie down.” Then the next day without notice, they came and took her. Took her away from me and the children, didn’t tell us where she was going or why. Didn’t tell us when she would be back. They didn’t tell her either – she didn’t know she was going to be taken to hospital. She begged to take our little one – our youngest child. But they said no. They took her to Darwin – alone. They left us behind. She was all alone, in a new country, without us, unsure if her baby had survived. We didn’t know where Darwin was, how far, when we would see her again. I was left in detention on Christmas Island – one son in hospital, my other children crying for their mother. They didn’t understand what was happening – how could they? Our youngest daughter was two at the time. Still in nappies. She needed her mum. 92 Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness | Understanding Statelessness in Australia My wife was held in detention for one month in Darwin. In this time, things were so hard- seeing my kids without their mother, worrying for my family left behind in Syria, being in detention, not knowing where they had taken my brother. I don’t know what to say. I felt, almost as though I was dreaming – surely it wasn’t real? Why have they put us in detention when we came asking for help? But I must keep going. Always, I keep going. Christmas Island is a very harsh place for children. There was nowhere to play; they were not allowed to go to school. The guards would force open the door on our cabin unannounced at 4am and shine the torch on our faces. My children felt scared. They would lie awake, crying. At night, the guards would take people to Nauru. No warning – just a knock on the door. We were scared we would be next. After my wife came back we spent 3 months in detention on Christmas Island. Then one day, a guard came to our door and demanded we put our clothes into a plastic bag and follow him. We didn’t know where we are going. The guards – they act like they are police officers. We were taken to a detention centre in Darwin. We wondered – is this where we will stay now? But the next day the guards come again and tell us to come. I asked them – “Where are we going?” but they didn’t answer me. We were taken to a detention centre in another part of Australia. That is where our youngest child was born. He was born in hospital. I was allowed to go with my wife, but the guards refused to let our older kids come. They were unable to see their mother. After the first separation this was very distressing for them. They cried every day. Our baby spent almost the first year of his life in detention. Having a newborn baby in detention is very hard. We weren’t allowed phones in detention or cameras. We have no photos of the first year of his life. Except one. There was one kind guard who took a photo of us and gave it to us. This is our only record. After nearly two years in detention, we were put into community detention in another city. This was a hard time – we might as well have stayed in immigration detention; it felt the same. I couldn’t work, or study. We had a 9pm curfew. We must stay inside – nobody is allowed to visit us after this time. The whole time the government caseworkers would tell us – “Do one thing wrong and you will go back to detention”. I told them – “I came here, to Australia, to be safe. I don’t want to cause any problems. I like this country.” All we wanted to do was learn English but we weren’t allowed. Not allowed to do anything, contribute to the community in any way.