The Murugappan family BRING THEM HOME

AUSSIES ARE CALLING ON THE GOVERNMENT TO RETURN A TAMIL ASYLUM-SEEKING FAMILY TO THEIR QUEENSLAND TOWN

- Sara Tapia

On June 12, Tharnicaa Murugappan celebrated her fourth birthday while being treated for sepsis caused by untreated pneumonia at Perth Children’s Hospital – a change from her previous three birthdays spent behind wire fences in immigration detention. Her only wish – likely for herself and her mother Priya – is to be reunited with her father Nades and older sister Kopika on Christmas Island, where they have been held since 2019. But Tharnicaa’s deteriorating health and hospitalisation has brought considerable public attention to the family’s plight to return home to Biloela.

Nades and Priya both separately fled the civil war in Sri Lanka, seeking asylum in Australia in 2012 and 2013, respectively. The pair then met and married in Sydney, before settling in the small town of Biloela, in central Queensland, in 2014. They threw themselves into community life, with Nades volunteering while awaiting a work visa and Priya regularly bringing curries to the local hospital and attending crafting classes.

It’s in Biloela that they also welcomed their two precious daughters. “Biloela is home. It’s where my life started,” Priya said of her adopted hometown last year. “This is where I got to be a wife, to fall pregnant. To be a happy person.”