Afghan Asylum Seeker Sets himself on Fire in Australia
KABUL: (Middle East Press) An Afghan asylum seeker has died after setting himself on fire during a video call with refugee advocates in Victoria southeast of Australia on Sunday, according to reports.
Khodayar Amini, 30, committed suicide by dousing himself in petrol and setting himself alight in Dandenong area, Australia’s state broadcaster ABC said.
Advocate Sarah Ross told the ABC she and fellow Refugee Rights Action Network member Michelle Bui were on a video call with Amini when he threatened to take his life.
Ross said the pair tried to talk him down, but were unsuccessful.
“We called emergency services to try to find him,” she said.
According to Ross, Amini feared he would be deported back to his country.
“His housemate had apparently told him that the police had come to his house looking for him,” Ross was quoted as saying in the report. “His fear and belief was that as soon as they found him, they would take him back into the detention center. So he was basically hiding out from them.”
Ross said she had spoken to Amini previously while he was in Western Australia’s Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Centre, but his mental health had deteriorated once released into the community.
During the video call, Amini threatened to take his life and he did it despite the advocates with Refugee Rights Action Network’s efforts to stop it, suggested the reports.
“My crime was that I was a refugee. They tortured me for 37 months and during all these times, they treated me in the most cruel and inhumane way, they violated my basic human right and took away my human dignity…They killed me as well as many of my friends such as: Nasim Najafi, Reza Rezayee and Ahmad Ali Jaffari” Refugee Rights Action Network quoted Amini as saying a night before his suicide attempt.
Immigration officials confirmed the man’s death during Senate estimates.
