A decade and a continent away from the bloody conflict of their homeland, the Loduku sisters are living reminders of the horrors thousands of families have fled in search of a brighter future.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
June 19 to 24 is Refugee Week and Maitland’s chief advocate for resettled families, Councilor Loretta Baker, believes the community is brighter and more beautiful for its willingness to welcome families like the Lodukus.
If you wander past Maitland Post Office during any Levee festival, you’re bound to see the three young sisters with wide smiles and henna tattoos braiding the hair of passers by. Elizabeth Loduku is in year 10 at Maitland Grossmann High School.
Her older sister Eva is on a gap year – looking at enrolling in university. The eldest of the trio, Easta, is chipping away at a degree in psychology in Newcastle.
“It was a long, complicated journey to get here,” Easta said.
In 2000 the Second Sudanese Civil War was raging and the Loduku family was hurrying onto a ship bound for Egypt leaving relatives behind.
It would be another five years before the conflict ground to a halt – but when it did two million lives had been snuffed-out in the oilfields and deserts of Sudan.
“It was fought between the North and the South,” Easta said.
“We lived in the North but we had both groups in our neighbourhood. It was very dangerous.”
The girls were raised in Cairo where the language, and culture was comparable to Sudan.
But racism and instability were a part of life in Egypt.
“Cairo was polluted, busy, there was education but it was not like Australia,” Easta said.
“Living there you’re made to be seen as an outsider.”
“The teachers were horrible,” Eva added.
“We were whipped.”
Easta said there were signs of growing unease in the region.
And as the Second Gulf War shattered any remaining hope for stability, the Loduku family was forced to look even further afield.
In 2005, the family talked to relatives in Finland, Canada and Australia about moving.
But sand trumped snow and, on a typically hot Christmas day, the sisters touched down in Sydney.
From Sydney, the Loduku family bundled into a car and up the M1 toward the Hunter.
Two years earlier Sudan became the top priority of the Australian Humanitarian Program. According to the Sudanese Australian Integrated Learning (SAIL) Program, Sudanese refugees accounted for about a third of all arrivals at that time, the majority were less than 24 years old.
Between 2003 and 2011 Newcastle and the Hunter became home for 546 Sudanese refugees, including the Lodukus.
Arriving at night, the sisters awoke in their new home town, unable to believe they had made it.
“I thought it was a dream,” Eva said.
“We were so excited, we had dreamed about leaving Egypt for so long and I just kept thinking – did it finally happen?”
Elizabeth’s Australian twang and her older sisters’ perfect English hide the fact that when they first enrolled at East Maitland Public School they didn’t speak a word of the language.
“When we first came everyone was so welcoming,” Easta said.
“I had friends and they kept chatterboxing.
“I was so hungry to know what they were saying but I had to draw what I wanted to tell them.”
But with support from a specialised English teacher, the girls were fluent by the time they reached high school.
Through her position on the Community Relations Commission, Cr Baker has worked with the Lodukus and many other refugee families adjusting to life in Maitland.
She said Australia’s hardened rhetoric toward those seeking to enter the country threatened the vibrancy of multicultural society.
“These people have lost everything,” she said.
“They want to work, they want a good education. They want to know us and they want to be a part of us.”
The sisters said they understood the shifting Australian position on refugees and asylum seekers in the wake of the Syrian crisis but reflected on the importance of maintaining a tolerant and accepting culture.
“I know how [other refugee groups] feel,” Eva said.
“They came here for the same reason as us.
“Many think people are coming here to take over – it’s not the case.
“They’re seeking peace and education.”
On Thursday, June 23, Callaghan College at Jesmond will screen the documentary Freedom Stories for Refugee Week. More information available at nsservices.com.au/news-events.