Recapping SBS’ ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’ – episode 3/3

Storyline:

In this episode the six Australians travel to two of the deadliest countries in the world to experience the scars of war first hand.

Episode recap:

The episode starts off at the refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya, home to 80,000 refugees. The three Australians at the camp lined up to get their food. It took them an hour and a half to get their food. The small rations of food the refugees are given need to last them two weeks.

The three Australians in Kenya visited relatives of the family with whom they stayed in Albury-Wodonga in episode 1.

The refugee camp in Kenya stretches over 75km and refugees are given a small section of land to build their own shelters.

The relatives at the camp did a Skype video call with their family members in Australia. It was a very emotional segment.

The Australians in Kenya were offered the chance to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Two of the three travelled to Congo whilst the other Australian decided to stay in Kenya.

The two went to a refugee camp and offered a small donation to help with the rape the women within the camp face.

The three Australians in Jordan went to a hospital and saw the scars of war first hand.

Later in the show the 3 Australians in Jordan accepted an offer to travel to Iraq and be taken to Baghdad by the U.S. Army.

The three in Jordan flew to a military base in Kuwait. After they arrived in Baghdad they drove through the notorious “red zone” and experienced what it is like to be on the front line.

By the end of the series most of the Australians have changed their views on refugees and asylum seekers. All the participants now understand the difficulties the refugees and asylum seekers face in their countries.

Some of the facts:

• The refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya is home to 80,000 refugees.
• There are 9 million displaced people in Africa.
• Close to half a million refugees first fled to Jordan after war broke out in Iraq.
• Jordan has 2 million refugees which equates to one third of their entire population.
• 5 million people have died from war in the Congo of a population of 70 million.
• More than 10,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq due to the war.
• Four and a half thousand U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq. This is more than the total number of people killed in the September 11 attacks.

Recapping SBS’ ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’ – episode 2/3

Storyline:

This episode focuses on refugees in ‘transit’ awaiting resettlement in another country. It also features a police raid with the aim to capture illegal immigrants.

Episode recap:

At the beginning of the episode the six Australians are flown to Malaysia. From there, the six visited slums where refugees wait to be resettled in countries such as Australia. Many of the people in the flats fled Burma due to a military regime.

The six Australians moved in with a refugee family and were taken on a tour of the flat in which the family lived. The flat was crammed; there were 50 people on just one floor. The children living in the flat had no beds so they slept on the floor. There was one toilet for all the 50 people. It was a very primitive and unhygienic environment. This is the same for all flats and apartments in the slums.

The refugee children hardly know life outside the walls of the flats. Some of the children were born inside the flats. The children stay in the flats all day because the refugees are treated as illegal immigrants even if they have UN documents. If a child is arrested on the streets the authorities will show no mercy and the child will be sent to prison.

The bathroom was very unhygienic and one of the Australians went in and cleaned the toilet with a disinfectant.

The Australians ate the same food as the refugees and late at night the children were still bounding with energy.

The six found it very hard to sleep due to not having a bed, the noise from the street and the Muslims belted out their prayers early in the morning. The refugees in the flats have to deal with this every night.

The refugee children attend a makeshift school in an apartment in Kuala Lumpur. This is the only time the children are allowed out.

The refugee children in Malaysia will never have access to higher education. The children have a will to learn and are happy at school.

The refugee men work as labourers for nine hours a day as volunteers. As a reward for the labour they are given food and shelter. When asked by an Australian why they don’t work at a construction site and get some money for their work the men said: They can’t work at a construction site because they are afraid that if they go out they will be arrested.

Later in the program the six were invited on a border patrol. Two of the Australians went up in a helicopter and the other four went on a boat.

The people smugglers operate in mangroves as the dense foliage makes it hard for people to see any illegal work.

The Australians were then invited to go on a secret midnight raid to capture people smugglers. The raid was at a construction site. Illegal immigrants face jail and/or deportation if they are caught.

Scores of people were arrested; many of them could’ve been refugees. One man from the refugee family with which the Australians stayed was captured. If they are illegal immigrants they may face caning, jail or deportation.

Later, three Australians were sent to Jordan and the other three are sent to Kenya. These 2 countries are the first ports-of-call for many refugees when they are fleeing their country.

The three sent to Kenya were taken to a collection point where they were collected by UN personnel and taken to a refugee camp.

To get to the collection point the three Australians had to have a security escort due to shootings in the past. The three were given a matt and a bowl and were told to take care of their matt because once it is stolen they can’t replace it.

The toilet was a hole in the ground and the walls, doors and the roof were made out of tin. 

Recapping SBS’ ‘Go Back To Where You Came From’ – episode 1/3

Storyline:

Six ordinary Australians sign up and agree to test out their opinions about refugees and asylum seekers first hand by embarking on a challenging 25 day journey in which they will travel by sea to countries without being told where they are going and will go to some of the countries with the highest populations of refugees and asylum seekers. 

Episode recap:

At the beginning of the episode the six Australians were introduced and their opinions on refugees and asylum seekers were expressed. The participants were forced to get rid of their phones and their wallets for the 25 days in which they will be participating in the experiment. The 6 people were then split up into two groups of three and were both sent to different places.

Three of the participants were sent to Liverpool, New South Wales, a town that has become home for thousands of refugees and asylum seekers and met up with asylum seekers from Iraq.

One of the Australians asked the men why they came to Australia without the required paperwork. The Iraqi men told the three Australians that before they boarded the boat to flee Iraq they had to give their paperwork to the people smugglers, if they refused to do so they would have been killed.

Later in the program the Iraqi men and the 3 Australians with them went to the local swimming pool. The Iraqi men kill time at the pool whilst they wait to be processed. However, one of the Iraqi men has a fear of water, he can't swim. He has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the boat trip.

One of the Australians asks the Iraqi man why he got on a boat which would have to endure rough seas if he couldn’t swim. The Iraqi man said that he was told by the people smugglers that the trip would only take a few hours and that the boat was very nice. When he got on board he was shocked to see the condition of the boat. There were 60 people crammed together on the small boat. The Iraqi man was sick on the boat trip as were many others.

The three Australians with the Iraqi men took a tour of the Villawood Immigration Detention Facility. Most of the people there are on their third and final appeal to be accepted into Australia and to acquire refugee status. If they are not accepted they will be sent back to the country which they have fled and will most likely be killed. One man in the facility was 24 years old and thought that Australia was the land of freedom but when he arrived in Australia he was locked up in the detention facility.

The other three participants travelled to Albury-Wodonga on the New South Wales/Victoria border. The three people move into a house with an African family that fled from their homeland to Kenya due to war and lived in a UN camp for 9 years before acquiring visas to fly to Australia.

One of the participants is a self-confessed racist and especially hates Africans so the encounter came as a huge shock. The Africans told the Australians stories of local people coming in to the refugee camps at night and stealing their food at gun-point. Another issue raised was that the African woman whom the Australians were speaking to lost her baby at the camp before it was born because she didn't have any money.

The African man opened up to one of the Australians and told him that he is happy to be living in Australia and doesn’t want to go back to help out in his homeland because he has such bad memories and he spent a lot of time outside of his homeland due to the war.

Later, all six participants met up at a wharf in Darwin and embarked on a boat trip to an unknown location. They had to travel on the same type of boat with the same equipment and items, the only difference was that there were fewer people on the boat.

After a few hours on board one of the Australians felt sick and tempers flared, even though there were only 6 people on the boat as oppose to the 50-60 that asylum seekers and refugees face.

Early in the morning, the boat started letting water in and the Australians used buckets to get the water out. After three hours of bailing the boat kept on sinking. Most refugee boats have no communication so they can’t call a mayday.

The boat then started smoking and that really opened my eyes to what it must be like for asylum seekers and refugees travelling on these boats.

At the end of the episode after the Australians are rescued by the coastguard the host reveals that the boat on which the participants travelled on was actually a sea worthy yacht converted to look like an Indonesian fishing vessel.

Some of the facts:

• 28,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Australia by boat since 1976.
• 2,000 refugees arrived in Australia last year on boats.

Why this three-part series has come at the right time:

Australia is currently in a debate over a plan to send asylum seekers to Malaysia for processing. The plan has been criticised by the United Nations. In the past, asylum seekers arriving illegally by boat have accounted for a tiny part of the overall number of refugee applications in Australia but recently the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat has escalated significantly.

According to data from the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, from July 1, 2008 – June 30, 2009 only 16 percent of asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat without documents. However, from 2009 – 2010, 47 percent of asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat without documents.

The December 2010  incident, in which 27 asylum seekers drowned when their boat smashed into rocks on Christmas Island and riots at detention centres over inhumane conditions has left the Australian Government looking for answers.

Episode 2 is on SBS tonight from 8:30 - 9:30(EST) and episode 3 is on SBS Thursday night from 8:30 - 9:30(EST) 

To watch online and for more information on the documentary visit: 

http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/goback

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