The mother of an Afghan asylum seeker who took his life in a Brisbane hotel says no one took his son’s illness seriously

Sayed Mirwais Rohani, a 32-year-old Afghan refugee and medical doctor who came by boat took his life in Brisbane on October 15. He had been detained on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island since 2013. In 2017 Rohani was transferred to Australia for medical treatment, and had resided in community detention for the past year. After Rohani had left Afghanistan, his family reunited with his father in the UK, where he had been accepted as a refugee. Rohani’s mother Hamesha was in Australia to visit her son when he died. She had not seen him for seven years and told SBS Pashto of her shock at what he had endured and his death. “Mirwais was discharged from the hospital, and he came to pick me up from the airport. He was very good. He asked about me and took me to his home.” Hamesha says her family had asked the Australian government several times to transfer him to UK so the family could look after him, but the Australian government rejected the requests. Please listen to the interview in Pashto language.