Afghan asylum seeker in Indonesia worried about her family

Asylum seeker Sitari Panahi lost contact with her parents and her brother last week, when the Taleban insurgents stormed through Afghanistan and captured, among others, the central province of Daykundi, where the family's home town is situated.

"Taleban coming. My brother went out. I spoke to my mother. One day, two days, my brother has not come back," Ms Sitari told The Sunday Times on the phone from Bogor, an hour's drive from Jakarta.

"Three days, I lost contact with my mother. I cannot call her any more," she added. She cannot reach her father either.

The 40-year-old single parent has been in Jakarta for almost eight years with her 11-year-old son, hoping to be relocated to Australia, where her former husband now lives.

"My brother's job involves security in a government office," said Ms Sitari, breaking into tears, adding that her family back home is among the most-targeted by the Taleban, who had fought against the former Afghan administration and sees government workers as enemies. "I am always thinking about them now."

The turmoil in Afghanistan has also forced Indonesia to move its Afghanistan diplomatic mission from Kabul to Pakistan.

There are about 13,000 refugees currently in transit in Indonesia. About 7,500 of them are Afghans. The rest come from Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Pakistan. There are also some Rohingya among their numbers. Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations refugee convention, but it allows asylum seekers to wait in the country as their cases are being examined by the UN.

Mr Zico Pestalozzi, programme manager at Suaka, the Indonesian civil society association for refugee rights protection, told ST that the abrupt fall of the Western-backed Afghan government and the ensuing chaos would further lower the chances of Afghan refugees around the world to be resettled in third countries, since the number of those seeking asylum was bound to grow now.

"Countries in Europe will take in the newest batches of asylum seekers from Afghanistan, obviously, and prioritise journalists, women's rights activists, and people who had an affiliation with foreign armed forces or organisations," he said.

And this comes after resettlement chances for asylum seekers had been dampened by the world's largest refugee and displacement crisis spawned by the Syrian civil war in 2011. People in Syria suffered from a brutal conflict that killed hundreds of thousands and tore the country apart. Millions left to become refugees and asylum seekers.

More asylum seekers started arriving in Indonesia from 2000 to 2002, after a lull during the late 1990s. Arrivals then slowed down but picked up again in 2009. In 2016 and 2017, the number remained relatively stable.

7,500 Number of Afghan refugees in transit in Indonesia. Indonesia has about 13,000 refugees in transit in total, with the rest coming from Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Pakistan. There are also some Rohingya.

Ms Sitari and her then four-year-old son Benyamin Hakimi arrived in Indonesia in April 2014, travelling through India and Malaysia.

A few years earlier, her former husband left Afghanistan first and managed to get to Australia.

He would send her money occasionally during her first two years in Indonesia. When he stopped, a friend of her father began transferring money to her from Iran but that has stopped recently too.

"I would like to go to Australia. My former husband remarried, but my son always asks about his father. I want him to meet his father," said Ms Sitari.