FED:Family feared lost in Christmas Is tragedy

AAP General News (Australia)
12-19-2010
FED:Family feared lost in Christmas Is tragedy

SYDNEY, Dec 19 AAP - For 25-year-old Sydney man Sami Faeli and his family, the wait
has become unbearable.

For nearly five days they have waited to see if their family from Iraq - Mr Faeli's
three aunts, uncle and two children - have survived the Christmas Island boat disaster.

As of Sunday evening, they were no closer to finding out.

"We don't know if they are dead or alive," Mr Faeli said, as he attended a memorial
service at Fairfield, in Sydney's west.

"For my family this is devastating. We don't understand why the police and the government
can't tell us who has survived."

Mr Faeli said he last spoke to his relatives on Sunday as they prepared to leave their
hotel in Indonesia.

They knew they would be travelling in a wooden boat, he said, but they believed it
was their only option apart from waiting "up to six years" for the UN to relocate them.

"They wanted to get here no matter what," Mr Faeli said.

There was an outpouring of grief and anger at the Iraqi community memorial service
in Sydney, with calls for survivors of the tragedy to be released from detention.

Thirty people - 13 men, nine women, four children and four babies - perished when their
wooden boat struck rocks and broke apart in heavy seas off Christmas Island early on Wednesday
morning.

Rescuers have found 42 survivors but it has been reported the boat was carrying as
many as 100 Iraqis, Iranians and Kurds.

"These people are traumatised," Iraqi community leader Hassan Al Saedy told AAP.

"They need to be with their community."

Mr Faeli said he called the Immigration Department Helpline 14 times, but says no one
could give him information.

He says he now plans to fly to Christmas Island on Tuesday to try to find his relatives.

"They came here for a better life," he said.

AAP ih/pc/cdh

KEYWORD: BOAT CAPSIZE MEMORIAL

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