FIGHTING FOR OUR FREEDOM
After escaping persecution, the Abdusalam family are reunited and loving Australian life
As Sadam Abdusalam waited at Sydney Airport his heart raced and his eyes scanned the crowds. Then he caught a glimpse of a smiling, tearful face that melted his heart – his wife Nadila, and in her arms the son he’d never met, Lutfi.
“I was excited but scared,” Sadam tells Woman’s Day.
“I’d been a husband and dad for three-and-a-half years but until then, it hadn’t been real. Then I saw them and we hugged and cried and, in that moment, I had everything I wanted.”
It had been three-and-a-half long years since Sadam and Nadila had been together. When they last said goodbye, Nadila was newly pregnant with Lutfi and neither imagined it would be so long before they saw each other again.
Sadam, 31, and Nadila Wumaier, 30, grew up in China as part of a Muslim minority, the Uyghurs. China has been accused of committing human rights crimes against Uyghur families and it’s believed more than one million Uyghurs have been detained, imprisoned in re-education camps or sentenced to long prison terms. China denies any human rights abuses.
NEW BEGINNINGS
In February 2009, with the support of his family, Sadam left China to begin a new life in Australia.
“I knew I’d find freedom here. I couldn’t speak English and the culture was so different but I was so happy to be in Australia,” he says.
In mid-2015, while Sadam was working three or four jobs to pay the rent and save for his future, one of his friends shared a photo online of him with Nadila. Sadam fell in love.
“I knew she was The One. I can’t explain it. We began messaging each other and a few months later I flew home to meet her and she was even more beautiful in real life,” says Sadam.
In July 2016, Sadam and Nadila had a religious wedding ceremony in China but when they parted a while later, they were hopeful about the future they’d soon share in Australia.
Nadila stayed in China and Sadam returned to Sydney, where he began navigating the
migration maze that would enable Nadila and Lutfi, born in August 2017, to join him.
“I soon realised it was not going to be easy. The Chinese government was seizing passports and Uyghur people were being taken from their homes. Every day I was scared the police would knock on the door and take her,” he says.
On a number of occasions police questioned Nadila about Sadam and warned her to cut contact. She lived under constant threat of disappearing.
“Some days I lost hope but the thought of one day seeing my son made me fight harder,” says Sadam. “Neither of us gave up because we couldn’t live without each other.”
His fight to be reunited with Nadila and Lutfi gathered momentum when he was introduced to lawyer Michael Bradley, who worked pro bono for refugees and asylum seekers. Sadam’s struggle was also taken up by ABC’S Four Corners in July 2019, prompting the Australian government to put pressure on the Chinese authorities.
SAFE REUNION
Finally, on November 24, 2020, Nadila and Lutfi began their journey to freedom.
“Nadila had been living with so many risks for more than three years. She is incredibly courageous,” says Sadam.
An anxious Sadam waited for news that his wife and threeyear-old son had boarded the plane. “I stayed in bed, waiting for a text. I only knew they were safe when their plane landed in Brisbane,” he remembers.
Today, the family are happily settled in Adelaide and Lutfi now has a 10-month-old brother, Latif.
Sadam has a plastering business and the young family dream of buying their own home. “Nadila studied nursing in China and she’s learning English and wants to be a nurse.
At the moment, our two boys keep us both very busy!” says Sadam. “We love going to the park together and going out for dinner – although that can be hard with two young children.
“Nadila and I would love to go on a date but we’ll probably have to wait a while to do that.”
But in the meantime Sadam is simply grateful they are safe. “I was never really expecting to come to Australia – when I first came here I didn’t know where Australia was.
“I knew nothing about this country but we are so grateful,” he says. “We love going to the beach and having barbecues and every day we feel blessed to be here and to be free.”
Freeing My Family: One Uyghur Man’s Epic Battle To Save His Wife And Son And Bring Them To Australia by Sadam Abdusalam and Michael Bradley, out now (Allen & Unwin, $32.99)
‘Every day I was scared the police would take her’