Post date: Aug 11, 2011 3:4:51 PM
Malaysia sends first batch of the 4,000 refugees to be resettled in Australia after a controversial swap deal was signed in late July.
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA (AUGUST 11, 2011) REUTERS - After seven years of struggling in a country that did not recognise his identity Bawi Hum Mualhlun is proud to announce that things are about to change.
He is one of 4,000 refugees currently in Malaysia that will be resettled to Australia in the next four years under the recent swap deal signed between Kuala Lumpur and Canberra.
Speaking to Reuters in his shabby home located in the second floor of a shop in Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur, the grinning 40-year-old Burmese said his joy was beyond words.
Bawi Hum, together with his wife and 1-year-old toddler, received their visas from the Australian immigration office in mid July.
"As soon as I get there (Australia) I would like to start working and pick up English language as fast as I can," Bawi Hum said.
Bawi Hum's family will join their relatives in Melbourne, their new city he also hopes he can get his five year-old daughter, who is in Myanmar, to join once the family are settled.
Similar to the 93,000 other refugees who are currently in the Southeast Asia country, Bawi Hum had been raided countless times by local authorities and arrested and held in an detention center at least three times.
Under the one-off swap agreement, Australia agreed to take 4,800 refugees whose claims have been processed.
In return, Malaysia will accept 800 who have not been processed and who had arrived in Australia's north by boat.
The Australian government planned to send 54 boatpeople intercepted off Australia's north last week, but was interrupted after an Australian court ordered a temporary halt.
The court said the Australian government did not have the power to expel asylum seekers and that sending them to Malaysia was unlawful.
Critics over the arrangement have focused on possible mistreatment of the refugees, especially those coming to Malaysia, which imposes harsh punishments for illegal entry that include caning.
For many refugees currently in Malaysia, being able to leave the country is a once-in-a-life-time opportunity. Most of them welcome the swap deal.
"This swap deal means that many refugees from Malaysia will have chances, more chances, to get resettled to Australia. It is huge news for us… We all are, you know, excited about that. But for those 800 people who will be sent back here we're sad for them, you know, because they got to face the same problems we've been through for many years," said Patrick Sang Bawi Hnin, a coordinator for Myanmar refugees from the Chin state in Kuala Lumpur.
The 26-year-old university graduate, who has been living in Malaysia for over two years, hopes he could be resettled with the others under the deal.
For many refugees who scramble to live in Malaysia, the future looks brighter.