Sahra’s Story
Meet Christchurch nurse and humanitarian worker Sahra Ahmed
THOUSANDS OF NEW ZEALANDERS ATTENDED THE
National Remembrance Service in late March 2019 for the victims of the Christchurch mosques terrorist attack. Helping to honour the 51 people killed on that deadly day (15 March 2019) was Sahra Ahmed, who read out the names of the dead. Two weeks earlier, she had been one of the first to reach the Linwood mosque after the shootings, having gone there with a medical team from a nearby health clinic where she had been working that day.
Memories of March 2019 may be receding for some, but for Sahra, along with every other member of Christchurch’s Muslim community, the scars run deep. ‘I wasn’t prepared for what I saw that day and never thought I would ever see anything like that in peacetime New Zealand,’ she says, as we meet over coffee at Ilex Café in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. ‘My colleagues and I did what we could to save a few lives … we thought New Zealand was really safe but I think that innocence has gone. Now safety is a relative thing. You can’t say this man was a lone wolf. He’s an individual who acted in a context and there are a lot of people who believe in similar kinds of things. There’s no point in denying it – we need to acknowledge it – and the impact is significant. It’s going to take a very long time for people to feel safe again.’
At the sentencing, Sahra served as a simultaneous translator and says it was ‘a four-day emotional roller coaster’ as she translated every word, starting from when the gunman decided to fire the first bullet. ‘You can’t help but feel the pain of those who lost their lives, those who were injured and those who lost husbands, wives, brothers, sisters and children …’
I had arranged today’s meeting as I was curious to find out more about Sahra, who New Zealand Red Cross has described as ‘a Kiwi Legend’. It proves to be an apt description.
On the afternoon of the mosques attack, she had been working overtime to help with an immunisation clinic that had been set up in response to a measles outbreak. She had only been back in the country for a fortnight, having devoted the previous two months to delivering much-needed medical supplies to hospitals in Somalia. Over there, she saw children dying of measles and pregnant women falling gravely ill and losing their babies, all for want of a vaccine. She is keenly aware of the devastation that a preventable disease like measles can wreak in vulnerable communities.
Sahra, who was born and grew up in Mogadishu, had earlier volunteered at a hospital in Central Somalia as part of a drought relief effort. ‘I remember going to a room where the delivery table was just a block of brown stained concrete and an old leather chair – it was disgusting. This is what inspired me to raise funds in New Zealand to buy some of the basic medical equipment that was so badly needed.’
After filling a shipping container with medical supplies, she set out for Somalia in early 2019. Getting the supplies delivered proved to be a logistical nightmare, but the effort paid off with three hospitals receiving medical essentials. She
returned to Christchurch on 1 March 2019 with a pledge in her heart to do more, particularly for Somali women.
‘I decided to start a registered charity focused on alleviating the impact of childbirth injuries like obstetric fistula. In one small village I visited, 11 women had died giving birth in one week. I try to be motivated by that. To give 20 women the surgery they need would likely cost less than
$ 2,000 per woman. It doesn’t seem a lot to help a woman get her life back, her dignity and her wellbeing.’
Sadly, the terrorist attack of 15 March 2019 derailed her plans for the charity. ‘Instead, the shootings happened and I’ve had no chance to do anything about this since then.’
Over the past two years, her sole focus has been on supporting health and wellbeing in Christchurch. She works part-time as a refugee health nurse and also chairs the Canterbury Somali Association, founded following the 15 March 2019 attacks to help promote, protect and enhance the interests of the local Somali community through a community development programme.
Sahra understands the needs of her community, having herself arrived here as an asylum seeker in August 1990.
She and her younger brother had fled Somalia to escape persecution in the face of escalating clan conflicts and a
She and her younger brother had fled Somalia to escape persecution in the face of escalating clan conflicts and a regime on the verge of collapse.
regime on the verge of collapse. Sahra was only 20 back then, her brother, 17. ‘It was the first time I had been away from home and I wasn’t prepared for the real world,’ she recalls. ‘I’d always been safe in the family home and suddenly I had all this freedom. It was scary, and yet exciting too. I remember coming out of the airport wearing a Hawaiian shirt and it was so cold!’
Old photos of Mogadishu from the 1960s show a beautiful city of tree-lined avenues and elegant stone buildings. Sahra talks about how much she looked forward to visiting the city; a trip ‘downtown’ was something to be savoured. ‘We lived in the suburbs and it was a very special treat to be taken into the city … I felt proud to be Somalian in the mid-1970s when the Somali language was written and was really coming alive – I was part of that first generation that learnt in Somali as the official language at school and was immersed in it.’
Surrounded by a caring community of family, friends and neighbours, Sahra was initially somewhat sheltered from political realities, but over time the impacts of an increasingly oppressive regime became impossible to ignore. Food began to be rationed and Sahra remembers having to queue for food with her mother. Sometimes there would be nothing left. ‘I was aware that it was becoming dangerous to say certain things. You’d hear about the neighbours’ boys and youths going missing. People were really frightened.’
As the situation steadily worsened, her family knew they had to act. ‘We could see where things were going – my brother and I were very fortunate to get out at that time.’ Arriving in New Zealand 30 years ago was a big culture shock. English had been Sahra’s favourite subject at school but she was not confident with spoken English and, at first, struggled to understand the Kiwi accent. Life in Auckland was difficult but Sahra slowly began to find her feet after moving to Christchurch in 1991, where she began taking day classes in English and baking classes in the evening. ‘It felt like coming home even though the house I was renting was extremely cold!’
The following year she enrolled to study nursing at Nelson Polytechnic. ‘I’d always wanted to be a nurse because I care about people … I had to work extremely hard. There weren’t the support systems in place back then to help people from
‘Knowledge and resources empower you to keep fear in perspective.’
other countries and cultures. Even though my tutors were wonderful, it was a sink or swim environment.’
From the day she arrived here as an asylum seeker, Sahra’s thoughts were with her family. They had managed to escape to the United Arab Emirates but wanted to be reunited with Sahra and her brother in New Zealand. After completing her nursing degree, she returned to Christchurch to work in the city’s health sector and, by 1998, had managed to arrange sponsorship for them to come out here. Christmas Day 1998 was one of the happiest days of her life. ‘They were the last ones off the plane – it was so wonderful to see them again!’
Her youngest brother was then only four years old and has grown up to be ‘a real Kiwi’. Sahra says most of her siblings have done well and have adapted to life here. ‘It’s what I always wanted for them: safety, security and human rights.’
Both Sahra and her husband, a public health specialist, are international delegates with Red Cross and have worked in disaster relief around the world. Sahra was part of the German Red Cross relief response after the 1999 İzmit earthquake in Turkey and joined the International Red Cross Ebola response in Sierra Leone in 2015. Much of her work there was around managing patients’ mental health and wellbeing, dignified burials as well as educating communities so former patients did not end up being ostracised on their release. ‘Of course, you worry about the risks; however, I felt well-equipped and educated about the virus. Knowledge and resources empower you to keep fear in perspective.’
New Zealand has been well rewarded over the years for granting asylum to this deeply compassionate woman. ‘It has taken me a long time to realise it, but my difference is my strength.’