We are safe because of Biloela'

Priya and her family are finally free thanks to their small town's constant support

Kopika and Tharnicaa race ahead on their scooters, ponytails flying, the sound of their laughter in the air. It is an every day scene for many Australian families, but for Priya Nadesalingam this is a dream she barely dared imagine until recently.

Priya, her husband Nades and their two girls Kopika, now seven, and Tharnicaa, five, spent four years in immigration detention, part of which was on remote Christmas Island.

in the rural central Queensland town of Biloela, their visas ran out and their refugee claims were rejected.

With one child then aged two and the other only eight months they were faced with two equally impossible futures - a return to Sri Lanka with the likely possibility of imprisonment or an indefinite period of detention here.

"At first when we were in detention I kept telling Kopika, 'We will be home next month. After a while she asked why I was telling her that when it never happened. She asked why I kept lying to her," says Priya.

The desperate mother was attempting to keep her family's hopes up in an unthinkable situation.

"We weren't allowed to go anywhere or do anything.

There was no proper food for the girls - only bread, cereal and vegetables," she says.

At age two, Tharnicaa would need surgery to remove teeth that had rotted due to poor nutrition.

LIVES DERAILED