Finding Neema

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Reuniting a refugee family with their lost little girl was a task Julie Cobbledick couldn’t refuse. Linda Peatling reports.

“I’m nobody special; I’m just a normal, everyday person who decided to help,” says 45-year-old Julie Cobbledick as she cuddles up with the seven members of the Mukasa family who’ve dropped in for a barbecue at her home in Shepparton, Victoria. To them however, Julie is more than special. “I think she is an angel who was sent to us from God,” says the childrens’ 42-year-old father, Maulidi, who first met Julie in December 2005 a few days after the family arrived in Shepparton as part of the Australian Humanitarian Programme. The Mukasas were one of 10 families from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo who were chosen to settle in the city after living in African refugee camps for five years. “I was ready to take my children anywhere to get away from the danger. When we landed in Australia I thought this must be heaven,” says Maulidi.

As the principal of the local primary school the children would be attending, Julie had decided to pay some of the Congolese families a visit to talk to them about the new school term that would begin after Christmas. “School was over for the year when they arrived and I knew they’d feel isolated, so I just popped in to introduce myself,” says Julie. As she spoke with the Mukasa family with the help of another local Congolese man, Adam, acting as interpreter, Julie heard things that shook her soul. “I learned the childrens’ mother, Juliette, had been brutally killed in fighting and I could only imagine the terror they must have experienced,” she recalls sadly. “This shy young dad and these beautiful children had been through so much and were so grateful just to be in a safe place that I couldn’t help but feel for them.”

Julie continued to reach out to the local Congolese community throughout the school holidays, inviting them over to meet her family, helping them settle into their new homes, assisting them with their English and answering any questions they had about life in Australia. “A lot of local people helped the families because we all knew they needed people to lean on,” she says. As the weeks flew by, the children adapted quickly to their new surroundings and, with some friendly nudging from Julie’s own three teenagers, their confidence continued to grow. “By the time school began the children had started to relax,” says Julie.

With the children slowly blossoming, Julie turned her attention back to Maulidi who, although grateful for his new life in Australia, seemed to remain stricken with sadness. “I thought it was because of his wife, but when I asked him if he was okay he said something like ‘I can’t find my little daughter in Africa’,” recalls Julie. “I was shocked – I couldn’t believe he’d not only lost his wife, but his youngest daughter was also missing.” In that moment, Julie says she was flooded with an overwhelming urge to do something to help him. “He asked if I could help him, but I had no idea what to do... I didn’t want to promise him I’d find his daughter, but I had to do something. So I just said, ‘I’ll find out’.” With that, Julie got to work, enlisting the help of a coworker to get the ball rolling. “We didn’t know where to begin, but we knew charity organisations were heavily involved in refugee camps, so my colleague called the Australian Red Cross and it didn’t take long to discover they have a refugee tracing service in Africa.”

Over the next four weeks, Julie helped Maulidi fill in the forms to say where he’d last seen his little girl Neema, five years before. “It wasn’t easy because of the language barrier, but we got through it and I learned that Neema was only three years old when he last saw her. Apparently she’d been unwell and was recovering with relatives who lived in another town a few miles away when fighting broke out,” she explains. “We finally sent the forms in February [2006]. I think we both thought we’d be in for a long wait.” To both Julie and Maulidi’s surprise however, their wait was short-lived. “It was only two weeks before Maulidi received a letter from a friend back in Tanzania saying he had heard that Maulidi’s younger brother, Macinda, had been seen travelling on foot and this meant he could possibly have Neema with him,” she explains.

Julie forwarded a copy of the letter to the Australian Red Cross and once again waited with the family for more news. “Every Monday morning we’d light a candle and say a prayer for Neema at our school assembly. I didn’t know whether it would take weeks or years to find her, but at least we had hope because someone had at least seen Macinda, who was Neema’s only living relative in Africa,” she says. To Julie’s relief, the phone call she’d been praying for came just one month later. “I’ll never forget that moment... as soon as they said it was the Red Cross on the line a shiver went down my spine,” she recalls. “They had received a letter from Macinda written in Swahili and they wanted to fax it to me. That was the slowest fax I’ve ever received.”

With the precious letter in hand, Julie raced to Maulidi’s home and waited anxiously with Neema’s brothers and sisters while he read it. “The letter said that Macinda had a child with him. There was also a mobile phone number, so Maulidi called it and sure enough it was Macinda. He simply said ‘I have Neema’,” she recalls softly. “Maulidi began to cry, then the children began to cry, then I began to cry and then everyone started dancing and hugging... it was like no other feeling on Earth.”

The next Monday morning, the Mukasa children, with trembling hands and broken English, told the school assembly their little sister was alive. “My heart was so happy and my worry was over,” says nine-year-old Fitina, who was also now able to reveal Neema was in fact her twin sister. “I didn’t know how to say it properly when I came here, but Neema’s birthday is same as mine so we are joined,” she smiles broadly.

As the school rejoiced, Julie began what she now describes as the most difficult part of the whole experience. “We had to apply for a visa for Neema and Macinda which meant filling in two 24-page forms for each of them to describe what they’d been through and why they should be allowed to come to Australia,” explains Julie. “I’d go to Maulidi’s house every other night with our interpreter, Adam. Maulidi would ring his brother in Africa to get the facts; he’d pass them on to Adam, who would pass them on to me, then I’d ask the next question and we’d continue like that for hours.”

They discovered that Macinda, who was only 15 when the war broke out, had swept his little niece up amid the chaos and carried her across the Congolese border into Rwanda while Maulidi was travelling with his other five children to Tanzania.

They then walked from Rwanda across Uganda and into Kenya, where they’d finally been taken in by a pastor in Nairobi, where they still lived. “It still amazes me to think that a 15-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl could survive such a journey,” says Julie. “They only had each other in Africa, because the rest of their living relatives were in Australia.”

When Julie and Maulidi finally sent the forms to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship at the end of April 2006, there was nothing else for them to do but wait again. “We began lighting candles and praying for Neema and Macinda’s visas every Monday morning at assembly again, and it seemed as if the whole town was waiting with us,” says Julie. “But it was a different kind of waiting this time, because we all knew Neema and Macinda were alive and Maulidi could talk to them over the phone. It was just a matter of time before they’d all be reunited again.” To Julie’s shock and the Mukasa family’s devastation however, the first answer from the Department of Immigration was not a positive one. “Macinda’s application was refused in July because he was now a 20-year-old man and was not considered to be in immediate danger,” explains Julie. “It
was a terrible blow to Maulidi, not only because Macinda was his only brother but because it could mean that Neema’s visa might also be rejected.”

Nervously, the family continued to wait for an answer about Neema’s application while they grieved for Macinda. “We wanted to appeal the decision on Macinda’s application, but we put it on hold because we were worried it might jeopardise Neema’s situation,” says Julie. While they are yet to receive word on whether Macinda will ever be allowed to join his family in Australia, they did receive the answer they’d been praying for about Neema on 28 September last year. “Her visa was granted,” says Julie. “And we all started crying and dancing again.”

While it felt like the end of a journey at the time, this final piece of news was about to send Julie on another journey she had never imagined herself capable of. “As a minor, Neema would need an escort to collect her from Africa and bring her back to Australia. Maulidi didn’t feel confident or safe enough to go back there and when the Department of Immigration offered to supply an escort, Maulidi just looked at me and I knew he wanted me to go.” With trepidation, Julie discussed the situation with her husband, Geoff, and their three children over the next few weeks. “I was terrified of going, but the kids were all for it and as my day of departure drew near, Geoff just said, ‘I’m coming with you’,” recalls Julie fondly.

Two months later, the couple touched down in Kenya and witnessed first-hand what people like Maulidi and his children had faced every day before arriving in Australia. “We’d travelled before but we were completely unprepared for what Africa would be like,” says Julie. “There were men with machine guns and hundreds of people living in abject poverty in the streets. It was absolutely heartbreaking and I wondered what on earth we were doing here.” Armed only with Neema’s immigration papers and with no official escort, Julie and Geoff found their way to the pastor’s house where Neema and Macinda were living. “I walked in the door and Neema jumped straight into my arms and I thought, ‘this is where I’m supposed to be’,” says Julie. Even so, the journey was far from over. “When we went to get everything finalised by the Kenyan Government, they wouldn’t issue Neema’s exit pemit,” explains Julie. “I felt physically sick because I just didn’t know what to do. It was Friday and nothing would be open again until Monday and that was the day we were supposed to be flying out. We had to cancel our flights and ring home to tell everyone we’d been delayed... it was a nightmare.”

For the next two days, Julie, Geoff, Neema and Macinda waited together. “We showed Neema a photo album with pictures of Maulidi and her brothers and sisters, and she looked at it over and over again,” recalls Julie. “We also gave her cards and gifts from the teachers and children from school; we wanted her to know that everyone was waiting for her back home, but underneath we worried that we might not get to take her home with us after all.”

When the weekend was finally over and the immigration office opened again, Julie and Geoff were back on its doorstep. “By some miracle the papers were suddenly signed and Neema was allowed out,” says Julie. “We couldn’t believe it – we held our breath while we completed all the medical checks and finally headed back to the pastor’s house.” As they approached however, Julie’s elation turned to sadness as the realisation sunk in that Neema would soon be saying goodbye to Macinda. “I told them softly that Neema was now allowed to go and, like me, their initial reaction was elation but when we went to pick Neema up the next day, everyone was very sad. Macinda sang Neema a song, the pastor gave us an African blessing and then we hugged each other and drove away,” recalls Julie. Macinda was silent but I could see how devastated he was to be losing her and he turned away from us when we left.”

To add to their woes, Julie and Geoff were not allowed to take Neema directly to the airport but had to drop her at an immigration transit centre where she would be escorted to the plane by her caseworker. “It was a devastating scene at the centre; there were hundreds of families saying goodbye to loved ones they might never see again. It made me realise how lucky we were and what little effort it really takes to help just one other person in the world. This was the least I could do for this little girl, and it really hadn’t taken up much of my time at all.”

As the couple made their way to the airport, they wondered whether Neema would actually make it there at all amid the chaos of the transit centre, but to their relief she was waiting at the terminal with her caseworker when they arrived. “She ran into my arms again and when we finally went through the customs gates, I started to cry but this time it was with relief,” recalls Julie.

Twenty-four hours later Julie, Geoff and Neema arrived at Melbourne International Airport where Maulidi and the other children were waiting. “As soon as he saw her Maulidi just ran over and scooped Neema up in his arms. The other kids were sobbing,“ says Julie. “I wanted to touch Neema to make sure she was real,” adds Maulidi. “I will never let her go again.”

The plight of African refugees

• Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has claimed more than 4 million lives over the past 10 years and has been described as one of the most deadly conflicts since the end of the Second World War.
• Both the DR Congo government armed forces and armed opposition groups have committed numerous crimes against humanity and some members are currently being tried for war crimes.
• Numerous reports of violence, murder, rape and sexual slavery of children continue in the DR Congo.
• Each year Australia provides refuge to 13,000 people under the Australian Humanitarian Programme. 
• In 2005-2006, about 7,100 people came to Australia from war-torn African countries. Many of those people have experienced trauma and torture. And many have lived in refugee camps for more than a decade.
• At the time of publication, Macinda’s application is still pending with the Department of Immigration.

Sources: Department of Immigration and Citizenship; Amnesty International.

Photography: Scott Hawkins. Hair & make-up: Gay Gallacher.