It had been a busy year for him. He was studying at university and raising a young son, as well as remaining politically active under the heavily repressive Eritrean dictatorship. That week, he had questioned the disappearance of several members of the government, after they had asked for democracy and a legitimate constitution.

But he wasn’t thinking about that when he opened the door.

“They said, ‘we are from the university, will you come out please?’ and I said, ‘yes, why not, sure,’” he remembered, 12,500 kilometres away and 14 years later at the Migrant Resource Centre North, Launceston.     

The men outside pointed a gun at him, covered his head, and took him away.

“They took me to prison,” he said.

“It was a very narrow room, less than a metre squared, a very small room. It was very difficult to breathe. It had water on the floor, and I didn’t have any blanket.”

He was given three pieces of bread to eat a day for the duration of his three weeks in the cell.

“I didn’t have anyone to tell me what I did, why they had put me in prison,” he said. “The person who gave me the bread didn’t talk to me. Then they scared me, they told me, if you say things like that again, you will be put in prison for long years.”

He agreed to apologise and was released, but several years later he discovered that there were plans to put him in prison again. That time, he left, leaving his pregnant wife and five-year-old son behind with hopes of reuniting once he had found a safe haven for them.

That safe haven is Launceston. Dawit has been living in the city for two years, after spending eight years in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. He fears that his family will not be able to join him, as he navigates the complex visa process that could result in bringing his family to Tasmania.

“I don’t want to be seperated from them for the rest of my life,” he said.

“That’s why I live, for my kids and my family. These 10 years have not been easy.”

This month Dawit sent his family $7500 USD, that he has saved while working in Launceston, to enable them to cross into Ethiopia. They are now safe, in the same refugee camp that was once his home.

On their first two attempts, he said, they were caught, his wife was badly tortured, and his 10-year-old son and five-year-old daughter were put in prison.

If they can’t come to Australia, he will likely return to the Ethiopian refugee camp to be with them, a camp he waited for eight years to leave. There he is unable to work and is rarely permitted to leave the camp, but he said that would still be better than never being able to see his family again.

“I don’t know [my daughter] and she doesn’t know me,” he said.

“She says to me on the phone, ‘I don’t know you, but people tell me you are very black.’ She is pale, like her mum. She says, ‘I want to see you face to face.’ I feel something bad inside. She is my daughter, but I don’t know her.”

Dawit’s family reunion is not assured. There are 65.6 million forcibly displaced people needing resettlement in the world, and Australia takes less than 20,000 refugees per year.

Migrant Resource Centre North chief executive Ella Dixon said Dawit was not alone.

“People who are fortunate enough to be successful in their application for reunification feel more settled and can move forward with their lives,” she said.

“For many who have been separated from loved ones, life feels like it has less meaning without their families here.”

While he waits to find out if his family can join him, Dawit keeps busy as Eritrean Community President. He organises the community for events, and welcomes new arrivals. He also has a hobby you couldn’t pay most people to do: watching the parliament and the senate.

“I can’t get words to express what I feel when I see them discussing things, I’m telling you,” he said.

“When they talk, when they discuss, when they criticise, when something happens without the consent of the people and those things are exposed to the people - there is democracy here, and Australia is a country I like very much. Really, Australians are lucky people.”  

Dawit said the best way to help Eritreans in Launceston was to volunteer at the Migrant Resource Centre.