Saleem Ali* was just 13 when his mother decided that paying strangers to smuggle him through several countries in the hope of reaching Australia was safer than keeping him with her and his sisters in Quetta, southwestern Pakistan.
The family had sought sanctuary in Quetta from the persecution they faced in Afghanistan as Shia Hazaras but, according to Ali, “my brother was killed by terrorists and (my mother) didn’t want the same to happen to me.”
Raising the smugglers’ fee was difficult, he added. “She had to borrow the money.”
Another brother had made it to Australia a year earlier using the same route that Ali’s smugglers used through Thailand, Malaysia and, finally, Indonesia.
The family had sought sanctuary in Quetta from the persecution they faced in Afghanistan as Shia Hazaras but, according to Ali, “my brother was killed by terrorists and (my mother) didn’t want the same to happen to me.”
Raising the smugglers’ fee was difficult, he added. “She had to borrow the money.”
Another brother had made it to Australia a year earlier using the same route that Ali’s smugglers used through Thailand, Malaysia and, finally, Indonesia.
Hundreds of migrant children behind bars in Indonesia
Saleem Ali* was just 13 when his mother decided that paying strangers to smuggle him through several countries in the hope of reaching Austr...
