The following is Ali’s story, told to me over a series of conversations. I have used an alias and made minor changes to identifying details to protect his identity.

Please click here to read Part One

Life at the Belawan detention center settled into a predictable routine. Money could buy almost anything, even favors from the guards. I started with about A$200 that I had sewn into the hem of my jeans before beginning my journey, and I gradually gained the favor of some of the guards. My father also sent whatever money he could to accounts controlled by officials at the center.

I bought a used Nokia phone, dismantled it into three pieces at night, and hid the pieces in various nooks around the detention center. There were nighttime raids when we were suddenly yanked awake and searched for contraband. Charging the phone was dangerous. I had to use live wiring connected to the exhaust fan in the toilets. The guards provided the SIM cards, of course, at a price.

The phone let me communicate with my family, and they sent me whatever money they could spare. It was a lifeline to the outside world. I had to keep my mind occupied; otherwise, I would certainly have gone insane. There were other detainees with me, mainly from Afghanistan. I taught them English, and they taught me Farsi. With time to study and concentrate, I learned quickly. Within three months, I was conversant in the poetic language. I spent thirteen months in detention. One thing was certain: I would be free one day. I would either be released by the system or escape.

After about eleven months, I bribed an officer to transfer me to the Makassar Detention Center in Sulawesi. I had heard I had a better chance of escaping from that facility. Rumors can be dangerous, but that bit of gossip was enough to fill me with hope. There, I met an elderly Afghan who had once been a water-well digger. He showed me a concealed tunnel from a failed escape attempt years earlier, in one of the detention center’s back rooms. To others, it might have looked like a foolish attempt at something impossible. To me, it looked like a possibility.

Two Rohingya detainees were with me. I bribed and convinced them to help me dig. We dug for two months, mostly at night. The soil was damp and heavy. We emptied some of the dirt into water tanks and slowly flushed some down the toilets, only when we felt the system could handle it.

It was slow, exhausting work, made even harder by the fear of being caught. Every scrape of metal against rock sounded loud. Every footstep in the corridor made my heart race. But we kept digging. The work itself gave me something I desperately needed: hope that freedom might be possible. When other detainees saw the progress we were making and realized that an escape might be possible, they joined us.

One Sunday, while senior management was away for the weekend, the old Afghan predicted we would soon break through to the other side. We divided into five groups, a total of sixty-two people. Those who had been detained the longest would leave first, as soon as the dirt on the other side gave way to open sky and fresh air. I was among the last to leave.

One by one, people slipped into the passage. Then it was my turn. I lowered myself into the tunnel and crawled through wet earth and darkness. Mud clung to my arms. The air felt tight around me. Behind me lay captivity. Ahead of me lay the unknown.

But it was freedom, nevertheless.

I stepped beyond the prison walls and looked up at the open sky. Around me, men emerged from the earth, one after another, covered in mud and blinking in the fresh air. Sixty-two human beings had moved through darkness and mud to reach the world beyond the walls.

I was free.

But not everyone had the courage to enter the tunnel, and many were left behind. Freedom, however, remained fragile. For eighteen days after our escape, we hid in an abandoned building on the city’s outskirts. We slept lightly and spoke in whispers. Every passing sound made us tense. We knew that being outside the detention center did not necessarily mean we were safe. Yet even while hiding, the dream of Australia remained alive in me. It was more than a destination. It was a place where I hoped the running might finally end.

Then the day came to board another boat. The sea did not welcome us kindly. Once again, the engine failed in open water. For a moment, it felt as though the ocean had returned to torment me. This time, however, two passengers who had worked as mechanics in the Middle East managed to keep the engine running long enough for us to cross into international waters. Using a smuggled satellite phone, the smugglers we had hired contacted the Australian Border Force and gave them our boat’s location.

Then all we could do was wait.

Near Ashmore Reef, a low-flying Australian aircraft circled above us. We looked up in silence, unsure of what would happen next. The next morning, two high-speed Border Force vessels sliced across the water toward us. A friend beside me began to cry, fearing we had been intercepted again by another military force. When the officers boarded our wooden vessel, I saw the patch stitched onto their shoulders.

It was the Australian flag.

We were transferred to a large naval ship, where we were treated with respect and dignity. Food and water followed, and we were all medically examined. I showered with clean water for the first time in what felt like ages.

But before I could begin a new life in Australia, there were still many stages to pass through: Christmas Island, Darwin, Derby Curtin, and finally Melbourne. Each place was another step in a process I could not control.

Eventually, I was granted a protection visa by the Australian authorities. My first jobs in Australia were humble. I washed cars in the cold Melbourne weather and stocked shelves at a local fruit market. Later, I opened a fruit shop, but the business was difficult, and I lost my meager savings. I worked as a hospital security guard and also tried importing clothes. Not everything I tried succeeded. But by then, failure no longer frightened me as it had before. I had already survived too much to let setbacks define me.

Determined to give back to the country that had given me refuge, I returned to study. In 2021, I completed a Diploma of Nursing. Over time, I began working as a nurse, caring for people during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. At the same time, I built a successful property management business. Life gave me more than work.

In 2021, I married. Over time, my wife and I were blessed with a beautiful child.

After everything I had endured—the detention centers, the tunnel, the boats, the fear, the uncertainty—I finally had what I had spent so many years searching for.

A home.

A family.

And a future.