WELL-KNOWN Tamworth multiculturalism supporter Eddie Whitham has travelled to the other side of the world to advocate for an Iraqi family in a refugee camp in Jordan, in the hopes they can start a new life in Tamworth.
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Mr Whitham left the city on June 7 and first travelled to Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan before heading to Jordan to visit the family, who heard about Mr Whitham over the internet and have been in contact with him for a while.
Mr Whitham’s daughter, Juanita Doody, said her father was hoping to fast-track the process to get the family, which are part of the persecuted Sabian minority group in Iraq, to Australia, after
the Australian Embassy in the Jordanian capital, Amman, granted them a humanitarian visa.
Mrs Doody said he would also try to give the family, which has been in a refugee camp for several years, a morale boost and encouragement about their chances of resettling in Australia.
She said the massive Syrian refugee crisis had overshadowed the plight of persecuted Iraqi minorities which are seeking asylum, such as the family her father was visiting, with Sabians now only numbering about 5000.
She said the Sabians were likely being targeted by so-called Islamic State militants in Iraq and were being forced to flee their country, with one of the family’s children having been killed.
“Even though they’re classed as refugees, the Jordanian (government) is not seeing them as that, so they’re actually in this no man’s world of waiting,” Mrs Doody said.
“They can’t settle there and they’re not given the same help, monetary wise and with housing, as the Syrian refugees.
“They’re considered the forgotten group of people that’s been (left) hanging, from all the other crises that have happened before the current ones.
“The Syrian crisis has trumped in the world news ... over these forgotten Iraqi crisis immigrants. It’s a very sad situation.
“They’re very educated people, because they used to have good jobs, and lived quite prominently and can even speak English quite well.
“A lot of these people feel like their dignity’s been taken away, because they can’t work or live as they did.
“They’ve been driven out by fear of death, to come to one of the other countries. And the country they were able to flee to is Jordan.”
Mrs Doody said Mr Whitham would also speak to other Sabian families while in Jordan and see whether there was anything he could do to help them resettle in Tamworth.
She said she expected her father to return to Tamworth by the end of the month.
