Ethiopian refugee finds life is finally beautiful

Ethiopian refugee finds life is finally beautiful

By DANIELLE BLEWETT


Tuesday, 21 March 2006 ‘ I came to Australia and I feel the feelings I cannot find from when I was a child. ‘ She’s made a long and joyless journey, but happiness is finally found and life is beautiful for Ethiopian refugee Felementu Ana. In 1993 Felementu and her husband of one year, Mohammed, were rounded up and detained for being on the wrong side of Ethiopian politics. They ran a restaurant but were also members of the opposition Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement and were among many thousands taken to detention centres in southern and western Ethiopia. ”They took us together, then we were put into different camps. They didn’t put us in together. I was in jail for three months. I came back to look for my husband, but there was still trouble,” Felementu said. Calls by the US and EU for the release of all Ethiopian political prisoners came too late for Felementu and Mohammed. ”I never saw him since that time. I never settled down. Just running. Scared of many things,” she said. “Sometimes it is hard to talk.” Now living in Launceston, Felementu was born in Ethiopia in 1968, one of five children.With no memories of childhood happiness, she thinks she might have been happy, but can’t remember how or when that could have been. ”I have been living a refugee life. It has been a hard life,” she said. Last November she learned that her mother was dead. Her father died on the family’s journey out of a Somali refugee camp in 1991. One sister is alive in Africa but there are no signs of her two brothers or another sister.She says she was “reborn” when she was offered re- settlement in Australia through a Woman at Risk visa. ”I came to Australia and I started happiness here,” she said. ”I came to Australia and I feel feelings I cannot find from when I was a child. ”People have helped me start my life again. I feel like my home and life are here.”Felementu set Australia a test to see whether she could trust her happiness. ”I saw two police walking down Charles St. A man and a woman. I walked ahead of them and waited to see if they would see me ... if they would maybe catch me.”Then, I thought, maybe they didn’t see me. So I did it again. I came in front of them. After that I had to make myself trust and settle down. ”Now everything works for me and nothing is trouble. I have a beautiful, wonderful life,” she said.Felementu wants to thank us all ... the Australian Government, the Tasmanian Government the Launceston community. “I am very thankful for the care and dignity. I pray to God that we can keep our peaceful life,” she said.