A plane carrying an asylum seeker family being deported to Sri Lanka had already taken off when a last-minute injunction to block their removal was granted, forcing the flight to land.
A video posted to Facebook (below) showed the devastated father of two Australian-born daughters holding his girls as the charter flight prepared to take off from Melbourne Airport around 11pm on Thursday.
The flight departed, but in a dramatic last-minute twist the Tamil family’s lawyer won an eleventh-hour reprieve from a Melbourne judge.
The plane was directed to land in Darwin, where it would arrive at about 2am Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, supporters of Priya, her husband Nadesalingam and their two Australian- born daughters, Kopika and Tharunicaa, aged four and two, gathered near the hangar to protest their deportation to Sri Lanka, where they are at risk of persecution because of past family links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
At least 70 supporters chanted “let them stay” as the plane prepared for takeoff.
The parents were for a time on Thursday separated from their children and “dragged against their will by Border Force officials on to a Skytraders plane,” according to Chris Breen for the Refugee Action Collective.
A supporter told the Sydney Morning Herald Priya was crying out as she was led to the plane.
“The officers came down and didn’t care, they just dragged her. She was screaming, both girls were screaming. It was very, very traumatic,”
The family has received strong support from Australians with more than 200,000 people signing a Change.org online petition to prevent them from being sent back.
“The Coalition government must not ignore the groundswell of support for this family,” Mr Breen said.
“Damage has already been done to the health of the family’s two young girls by prolonged detention. The cruelty must end.”
Angela Fredericks, who is behind the campaign to keep the family in Australia, said she is unsure what will happen to them now.
“I’d dare say they’d be escorted off the plane then I’d say they would be back in a detention centre so whether they will be flown back to Melbourne I don’t know,” she told AAP.
Priya and Nadesalingam came to Australia separately by boat in 2012 and 2013 fleeing violence following Sri Lanka’s civil war.
The family had been held in a Melbourne detention centre since March 2018, after being taken from their home in Biloela, in Queensland, during a pre-dawn raid.
They lived in Biloela for four years on a temporary bridging visa before it ran out in March 2018. The High Court denied their final bid to stay in May 2018.
Last week the family found out their efforts to stay in the country had been rejected, with supporters calling on the federal immigration minister to reconsider.
“The United Nations Special repertoire for torture made a plea to states not to send Tamil’s back to Sri Lanka in the last year,” Refugee Action Collective spokeswoman Lucy Honan said.
The Department of Immigration had previously stated the family’s case had been assessed over many years.
The orders made by Judge Heather Riley state that the Minister for Immigration be restrained from removing the applicant from the Commonwealth of Australia
A hearing is listed for 10am on Friday at the Federal Circuit Court.
Supporters previously told AAP they feared the family would be in danger if sent back to Sri Lanka.
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