The Wire

The Hazara ethnic group has long been persecuted in Afghanistan. So when a small group of them reached Australian shores recently, they though they had finally found a safe home. But, while waiting in the Nauru detention centre for their asylum claims to be processed the Taliban were toppled. On the back of this news, the Australian government persuaded them to return to Afghanistan because Canberra claimed that the departure of the Islamic fundamentalists would enable them to return safely home. However, a new report by the Edmund Rice Centre, has found that of a group of 37 Hazara refugees returned in 2003, most are now facing real danger. One lives in Afghanistan but is constantly on the run, and 34 live illegally in Iran or Pakistan. Only two were found safe, and that was only because New Zealand had granted them asylum. Hussain Razaiat, a Hazara man who fled to Australia, says that immigration authorities have been too quick to assume that Afghanistan is now safe, following the fall of Taliban. He now lives in South Australia, and chairs the Afghan United Association.