Dateline to screen video diary of asylum seeker journey

In one of its best news stories this year, SBS show Dateline will screen video taken aboard a people smuggler boat by an asylum seeker who travels from Afghanistan to Indonesia.

In a special report on Tuesday, Dateline provides a unique insider’s view of an asylum seeker’s incredible journey. Video and photographs taken by a young Afghan man who has documented his trip, give an amazing insight into the perilous journey so many asylum seekers have made, successfully or otherwise, in an effort to reach Australia.

Video footage taken from the deck of a people smuggler’s boat struggling in rough conditions off the coast of Indonesia just last month, reveals just what it is like on board during the life-risking journey.

“People crying, shouting, and praying loudly. It was like a scene from doomsday,” Barat Ali Batoor, a Hazara and photographer from Afghanistan, recalls to Dateline’s Mark Davis.

The footage, taken by Batoor before he was forced to abandon the doomed vessel as its driver crashed it into shore because it was taking on too much water, shows the danger, fear and desperation experienced by some of the more than 90 Hazara asylum seekers on board the rickety boat. In addition to video, Batoor’s photos capture the many moments of his incredible journey all the way from Kabul.

Unlike two of his friends who attempted the dangerous trip before him, Batoor survived but now finds himself living in limbo south of Jakarta, along with thousands of other Hazaras living in Indonesia.

Davis joins Batoor here as he contemplates his next move and encounters many Hazara men, some who tell him that their lives are in danger back in Afghanistan because they have worked with international security forces during the last 11 years of conflict. Now, as foreign troops prepare to leave Afghanistan, these men feel abandoned, their lives under threat because of their work with coalition forces.

Their choice is either to wait indefinitely in Indonesia to be processed and resettled by the UNHCR, return to Afghanistan where they fear they will be killed by the Taliban, or risk their lives on the seas to reach Australia. Many, including Batoor, consider a ticket on a people smuggler’s boat their only option.

One Afghan man tells Davis that he worked for five years as a frontline translator for the Danish forces in Afghanistan, and has been “stranded” in Indonesia for four months waiting to get on a boat.

“It’s a big risk for us to go to Australia by boat. We accept that risk because we have nowhere else to go,” he tells Davis.

9:30pm Tuesday SBS ONE