Ironically, Covid-19 has given people of the free world a taste of how it feels to live with uncertainty. But for them, this uncertainty is likely to last only a short time. It will soon be over: many people are already getting back to their everyday busy lives. In contrast, refugees’ lives will continue marred by uncertainty indefinitely, or maybe just until they die, as the world does not even care enough to create a vaccine for them.
I asked some refugees what they thought about this pandemic. They replied, “This is nothing compared to what we have been suffering for years without any certainty of our future. It will be better if the virus can give us quick death rather than dying every day of physical and mental suffering.”
Refugees’ uncertainties start from the very first day when they flee to escape war, genocide, and persecution in their countries. As refugees take flight in wooden boats, they do not know whether they will live long enough to see tomorrow or where they will end up. When they finally make it to a distant land, they are detained. There is no certainty of release: if they are lucky enough to be freed after four or five years of imprisonment, it is only to be moved to community shelters where they remain trapped in limbo with no official status and still no certainty about their future.
Proof of this can be found in the indefinite stalling and delays in processing refugees for resettlement to safe third countries. The anxious and endless wait destroys their well-being. It crushes their hope of eventual freedom from persecution, isolation, and exclusion of any real opportunity to rebuild their lives.
This is the uncertainty shared by 70 million refugees around the world. In Indonesia, 14,000 have stagnated in indefinite limbo for more than a decade already.
While refugees wait for a durable solution such as resettlement to Australia, Canada or the US, Indonesia denies them the most fundamental human rights to work, study and travel. This politically-induced misery is the root cause of the refugees’ separation from their parents and families, who have mostly remained stuck in their home countries and in danger. Some refugees in Indonesia are truly desperate, having lost all connection with their families. In some cases, their families have given up hope of finding their lost relative, leaving them totally alone in this most vulnerable situation.
Over the years, fifteen refugees have taken their own lives in Indonesia alone. In the past six months alone, six refugees gave up on their lonely journeys in uncertainty. Before the pandemic, a slim number of refugees were hoping to be offered resettlement. Many countries have closed their borders, using pandemics as an excuse. Australia has long stopped taking any refugees from Indonesia. In contrast, the US and Canada have reduced the number of places for refugee resettlement. As a result, refugees have lost most hope to ever escape from the uncertainty of their future.
These refugees are waiting to see some change in their lives. Yet, their days and years slip by wasted, as they lose their will to live. Most of them don't even remember dates anymore; some have even forgotten their birthday. Their patience to wait for a hopeful change has dried out at this point. Change seems to remain as an ever-present dream, just a step ahead or two removed from reality but cruelly inaccessible. Many fled from war and conflict in the hope of helping their loved ones and eventually pursuing their life goals and ambitions. Despite their bravery, resilience and resourcefulness in managing their escape, they continue to stagnate in legal limbo.
“Life is Hope; without Hope, there is no Life!”
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