Emerald Community House hosted a well-attended vigil on Wednesday 19 July, as part of a nationwide movement aimed at highlighting the plight of asylum seekers.
With an estimated 50 people attending, the local vigil marked the four-year anniversary of the announcement of then-prime minister Kevin Rudd that no person seeking asylum by boat would ever be resettled in Australia.
Those who attended the vigil lit candles and listed to a selection of short, personal stories of refugees and asylum seekers, who have been held in offshore detention on Manus island and Nauru.
Judy Taylor of Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children, La Trobe electorate, a sub-committee of Emerald Community House, spoke of the necessity to continue to lobby all members of the Federal Parliament.
She read a prepared statement provided by the organisers of the nationwide Vigil, which included the information that over 2000 refugees and asylum seekers remained in limbo, and that this figure included 169 children.
“We are calling on both major parties to form a bi-partisan commitment to immediately evacuate the offshore camps and bring these people to safety,” her statement concluded.
Several of the people attending the vigil shared stories of the work they and the groups they represented were doing to alleviate the sufferings of refugees and asylum seekers.
