I am trapped in Australia's camp on Manus Island but I have remained the master of my soul. While I don't have control over my life, I have never relinquished control over my mind. I have accomplished a great grasp of the English language, even though I could barely say a few words when I arrived here.
I am writing because everyone's mood here has darkened beyond understanding. We have begun our fourth year behind the same fence without hope and a clear future. It feels like we don't exist. Behind our calm exterior, we are rotting from the inside. Hence, everything we suffer goes unnoticed.
!["Many men around me came to Manus as healthy young men but have been turned into a shadow of who they once were by the ...](/web/20170112082834im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/e/v/j/s/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtoqky.png/1484131260635.jpg)
My ancestors have lived in Rakhine, Myanmar, for generations. However, our country doesn't acknowledge the existence of Muslims. We are considered illegal migrants in our own land. Rohingyans are not allowed birth certificates or any documentation to prove our citizenship or our existence. Therefore, there is no way to leave our country legally, even though we are considered the most persecuted cultural group in the world.
Our families have been stuck in UN camps throughout Asia waiting decades for visas. So we are left with no choice, except to take a boat ride and risk our lives to find protection. People who are at imminent risk of death don't make plans before they start travelling. We just jump into oceans to escape persecution. Oceans are our lifeline because it is the only way we can seek safety. As a Rohingya I would never be able to come by plane, which is the accepted way to seek asylum. I would require an immense number of documents to apply for a visa. I would need more than $US5000 in cash to be able to board the plane. But, even with all these papers, it is very unlikely I'd be granted a visa.
And now after three years of imprisonment, the government is trying to impose a lifetime ban on refugees from ever entering Australia. Some men wasting away on Manus left on a boat only two days after their wife and children. In those two days Australia closed its borders. We had no idea of the policy change, we were busy surviving.
And we are shattered by Faysal Ishak Ahmed's unnecessary death. It feels like an Australian-run detention camp is a death sentence; we refugees are going to die one by one.
I didn't know what depression was and how catastrophically it debilitates. Now I see with my own eyes what it does. Many men around me came to Manus as healthy young men but have been turned into a shadow of who they once were by the enduring hopelessness. They don't even know they are suffering. All they want is to stay in their bunk beds, wrapping bedsheets around the frame, blocking out their surroundings, the light and humans. It is like living in a coffin, and I know that often they wish they were already dead.
I hoped Australia would finally end this sense of feeling irrelevant, yet instead it has reinforced it. While the torture in my country is transparent, in Australia it is not obvious.
We hope the US acts quickly to get us out of this endless prison. We have been tested beyond our endurance and our threshold has reached saturation point. My abilities are being eroded after spending almost six years in various detention centres. All we crave is what all people crave: freedom and a chance at a life in safety so we can contribute to this world.
On behalf of the men on Manus Island, I ask the world to do something to end Australia's political game on vulnerable refugees.
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