Bethlehem Tibebu surmounted numerous challenges to build herself into what she is today. The young Ethiopian woman details her arduous journey from being an asylum-seeker to becoming a train inspector for Melbourne Metro.
In her mid-20s, she was diagnosed with depression, high blood pressure and diabetes.
The Australian government used our bodies as a human fence to send a strong message to other incoming asylum-seekers and stop their boats.A bright accounting student at Ethiopia's Haramaya University, Ms Tibebu left her homeland due to the ethnic conflict there.Once there, she was suggested by her friends that there was "hope for a better future in Australia".in 2013, Ms Tibebu says she borrowed US$2,000 from her relatives living in the US to take the journey of a lifetime.
In this photograph provided by the Department of Home Affairs, two launches from HMAS Launceston intercept a boat believed to be carrying 72 suspected asylum seekers on 29 April 2009 near Bathurst Island in the Arafura Sea north of the Northern Territory.The wooden boat’s capacity was 15 passengers, 20 at most, Ms Tibebu recalls.“I was the only Ethiopian national seated on a tiny, leaky boat full of people without life jackets.
Fearing for their lives, they prayed fervently in their languages to Allah, God and whoever else they believed in, to save them from perishing in the ocean without a trace.
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