Griffyn McWhirter’s Diary,

19-6-2017. At the camp right now. Alone.

So, this is probably the last entry. Why? Because today, I’m leaving the camp and I’m going home. I have to go back.

I know- people say that I should be grateful, and how I should be thanking them for ‘saving’ me from the dangers of my home. The whole town was bombed; the house I lived in is probably gone. But it’s been a year. A whole year. I have to check; shops might be rebuilt, houses might have been made.

It might be better now. I need to get back. I need to live again.

(-)

I have heard it, for sure this time. Refugees are becoming more and more unwelcome here; there are even attacks. Maybe going home would be safer than here. And anyway- my family might be there. My brothers… Mum and dad… Everyone. I haven’t seen them for months. I don’t even have photos. I never got the chance to bring any.

I wonder if my family is okay. They might’ve been kicked out of a camp already, or lost at sea, or…

I’ll just leave it there. I hope they’re safe.

(-)

Okay. I’ve got food and water. It’s nearly night I won’t be sleeping this time- the nightmares are too great. I have to start leaving soon. I will attempt to return with a boat. Several Australians are coming with me. We’re going home, or we’ll die trying. Or we can die here, anyway. Almost irony.

Alright. This is the last bit. Because of what I’ve written, I’m probably gone by the time you’ve read this. I’ll either be home or at sea. If any friends or family read this, I want you to return with me. I will see you there.

Griffyn McWhirter.

Dear family

I have to leave our house because it is in ruins and in flames.

I am in a refugee camp and I have been gone for about a year now and I really want to return home but I can’t because someone says it is still too dangerous to return home.

I really miss the good food like pizza and spaghetti and most of all I miss my friends and I really miss Jacques beach but here there is no beach and I don’t know anyone here.

I don’t have hardly anything but the things I found were a knife and a back-pack and some bananas.

The way I got to this refugee camp was on a refugee boat. I don’t know where here is but it is somewhere far away from our house and it is better to live in.

I got on the boat and I said to the driver “where are we going?” and he said “we are going somewhere else but not here” and I said “OK” then we travelled overseas for about 3 days then we had our only encounter with the pirates.

The pirates stopped next to our boat. I tried to hide my knife as hard as I could. The pirates came on board and stole everyone’s belongings but when a person refused to the pirate so the pirate pulled out his sword then stabbed the man in the stomach and then the man fell to the ground. The pirate took his stuff and then said “anyone else want to refuse?” then no one spoke.

Then the pirates left then I got my knife out and put it in my pocket. Then the next day we ran out of water and food but luckily we found the refugee camp and now I have been here for a year.

 

I hopefully am coming home soon.

 

Love from Harrison

Dear journal
I’m not really sure what I’m doing but one of the people I’m sailing with told me to do this. Basically I’m a refugee, I never in my deepest thoughts that I would be a refugee. But I am. Over the last couple of years I heard on the news that our country started   (war?)  and then our country Australia was bankrupt. As soon as that was announced the riots started and then our country started going nuts, there were mass murders, bombings and fires.
Over the last year my family has been hiding in a small shelter with a small amount food and resources. Over the last couple of weeks we overheard that there was a boat leaving to South America.
When we were getting on the boat there were two or three cars that had intimidating people on it who had guns and other weapons.  Before we could even properly see them they had already started shooting at us.  As my sister and I were getting on the boat she got shot, my sister was shot.  I had no time to weep.  Before I knew it I saw my family getting gunned down and slaughtered, I was petrified scared as I watched my family laying on the floor dead.
No matter how hard I tried yelling out to go back, all that I achieved was annoying the people I was sailing with. I kept screaming out to go back and pilot said “shut up, they’ll start shooting at us”.
After 3 weeks of sailing we saw land, but there was a boat in-between us and the land. We were scared we didn’t know what we were going to do.  We had nothing to fight back with, no guns no knives, no nothing. We were scared we didn’t know what to do we had no idea if they were dangerous or not for all we knew we were as good as dead…

18th of January 1955

I’m as cold as ice, my body shaking, teeth chattering. I’m desperate to go home, to leave this refugee camp, but everyone is saying it’s too dangerous. I’m feeling homesick, I’m missing my friends, my family, my way of life. I’m just simply down in the dumps, I feel like a bandicoot on a burnt ridge, unknown, unwell, just hopeless.

There is nothing remaining in our small town, just the few things we managed to gather before leaving. My Mother is sick and is worried about what’s going to happen next, where are we going to end up?

9th of February 1955

Struggling to breathe, gasping for air, I feel like I’m falling! My nightmares just keep increasing each and every night. I’m still thinking about when I fled my town and my country. I feel unsafe here, I don’t know where my family is, and they don’t know where I am! It’s just me and my Mum, swimming in a fish bowl. I should be grateful for where I am, but I just want to be at home, in my own bed, safe! The Syrian refugee camp is cold and packed.

13th of March 1955

Over the past week, stories have been heard that refugee camps have been targeted and attacked. They lost everything, even the things they brought with them from when they fled the country. They are being transported to the nearest refugee camps in the located area, so recently we have had 19 refugees transported to the same camp as us, some being people we know.

24th of April 1955

Yesterday I caught a well-known sickness that one of the refugees brought in from Malaysia. Its horrible, I feel horrible. The doctor has come to see me twice and has told me it Is a death situation! What do I do? My Mother has been put into the tent next to me so she doesn’t catch the disease, because of her age there is more chance of her dying then me! I don’t want that to happen!

15th of May 1955

Well I am fully recovered from my disease. I am so happy, my Mother has returned to our tent! Yesterday I received a letter from my best friend Charlize, she is doing well and misses me heaps. She has found out she is getting transported from the Malaysian refugee camp to another. But she doesn’t know what one yet. My Mother and I are happy in the Syrian Refugee Camp and can’t wait to be returned to a new location where we can start a new life style. But it may be a while until then.

25th of June 1955

I can’t believe it! Charlize, my best friend has been transported to the Syrian Refugee Camp! I saw her at dinner! She has been staying in the tent next (tent 17, I’m tent 18) to me for the past few hours and I didn’t even notice! I have been receiving letters from her the past few months and she didn’t even mention that she was moving to the same refugee camp as me! She apparently was moved here to be with someone she knows.

24th July 1955

Yesterday was the hardest day of my life, the war was tough, but losing a Dad is the worst thing that has happened to me. He had fled the war with gunshot wounds to the head and chest, but by the time he was placed on the boat, it was too late. I want to return to my home, to see what is remaining of our small coastal town. I miss my Dad so much but I know that there are others feeling the same way as me, and it’s not fair. I need to remember the good times I had with him, before the war, before all of this happened! If it wasn’t for the War, maybe he would still be here. I miss our family, our home, our family days, just my way of life. I miss everything and just want my Dad back, I can’t sleep. The visions of him, lying there, on the boat hopelessly, dying, and they are just standing there, doing nothing. It’s just not fair. I hate it, it will never be the same again. Sooner or later, ill forget what he sounds like, looks like, I just won’t remember anything about him, the way he sang to me. The words he said. Everything.

6th August 1955

Well, I have just packed up all of my stuff, and now I am sitting on the boat, watching the waves go by and the people aboard. Charlize is to the left of me and my Mum on the right, holding onto our stuff tight, it is a long trip to England on the boat. I just can’t wait to start a new life, to live without fear, and to be happy with the people I am with now! I can’t wait. I just wish I never have to flee the war again!

13/10/2020

 

A year has passed since the war began; I still remember what happened like it was yesterday. The screeching of the planes, the shaking of the ground as the bombs exploded again and again the people crying, children crying alone, but the thing I remember the most was the boat, the hardest thing was getting on to the boat, the stress to gather as many things as possible, having to push through children and adults, tripping on fallen people that were bruised and beaten up. But in the end I made it onto the boat I could only manage to grab a few things: my knife that my dad got me for Christmas a few years ago (the knife had a black blade and a camouflaged handle with some rope tied around it), a bag filled with six water bottles each containing about 750ml of water, half a loaf of bread and 4 cans of soup I also managed to jam my pillow into the remaining space in the bag.

 

When I did get on the boat and found myself a spot it didn’t take me long to realise that my whole family wasn’t on this boat, I knew my dad would be alright but my Mum and my sisters wouldn’t be.

 

I was fortunate to get one of the good boats and I scored a place under the top deck that had pillows and a small, rubber-like mattress. Sadly I had to share it with a few kids that were a lot younger than me. They looked about 4 to 7 years old which meant they were relatively small, so I had a fair amount of room to myself.

 

The trip lasted for what felt like a year or two the food I brought disappeared very quickly and I spent most of the trip starving, sadly 20 people died on the trip. It didn’t bother me that much because I didn’t know them, but others didn’t take it so lightly. Two of the people that had died were the kids that I shared the mattress with I think they got sick and just died. Luckily I didn’t get sick and I had more room to sleep ( I did end up getting more sleep as a result)

 

Now I am in a refugee camp in god knows where, we still aren’t allowed into this god forsaken country, I am starving (we are only given very little food but it’s better than none), cold and worried for my family, I hope I will see them soon.

 

Max Newcombe

I wake up sweating, panting almost. I can’t escape from these horrific dreams. They keep managing to slither into my slumber. It’s already been a year since I was put into this refugee camp but somehow I can remember the war like it was just yesterday. I am the only one from my family in this refugee camp. Everybody else from my family was unable to come aboard my boat, they were all left behind in the war torn country once proudly called Australia. Now it’s just rubble and debris.

War can break even the toughest of people. I found that out today, the news reports keep on saying how the war is still raging and we cannot go back. People break down crying every day. This whole thing just seems to be testing my sanity. The moment I arrived at this camp I felt the emotions drain from my body. I no longer feel anything, only pain.

Every second here feels like an eternity. The people around here give me food expecting me to be grateful. It’s almost impossible to enjoy the food. I’ve seen cockroaches that look more appealing than the stuff they give you. The guards around here are as lifeless as all us refugees. I feel like an inmate, I don’t have any freedom. They put me in this camp to protect us. But it would appear that its damaging me more than being in the war would. At least in the war, I get to be with my family.

I don’t know what to believe in anymore. The other refugees around this place are talking to gods of all different religions. On their knees praying. How desperate can people get? I want to leave; I just want to go home. I feel my sanity crumbling with every day that goes by. It’s taken a year but it has finally happened. I’ve been broken.

This camp is like an asylum, everybody has gone insane, and their insanity feels contagious. I think I’m starting to catch this disease. Why did we have to leave our country? Nobody will answer me, nobody will talk to me, nobody will look at me and nobody will even notice me.

 

 

It has been a year since I had to flee Australia because of world war III. I am asking the refugee camp boss when I am going home every week but he is saying it is still too early to come home. I don’t know where I am. The refugee camp that I am in is a mess there is rubbish everywhere and it is noisier than some of my friends.

 

I miss home, all I want to do is sleep in my own bed and go to the beach and live in peace and quiet. I can’t believe that I am missing school. I miss my mums cooking and my friends. I tried to making some friends but they say I don’t have the right culture.

 

Today the media came to talk to some of us and I got picked to talk to them. They asked me if I was grateful where I was.

I stayed “no, I just want to go back home.”

“Do you think they should send some people back home?”

“Do you?” I said

“Yes!”

Then they walked away.

 

One week later, they grabbed 400 refuges including me and took us somewhere else. They took us to the refugee camp in Malaysia. I was worrying if I was going to be ok then I thought that my family might be there.

 

I am in Malaysia now. I still have nightmares about when I left and last night there was an attack on a refugee so I think I will have to leave Malaysia now.