Sources within the Afghanistan refugee community in Indonesia report that a young man from Afghanistan took his own life in the capital city of Jakarta after living in limbo in the country for over a decade.
The sources identified the man as Mohammad Yassin Nazari, a Hazara from Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, who committed suicide in front of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Jakarta on Tuesday, July 30.
Mr. Muradi, a refugee from Afghanistan in Indonesia, told KabulNow that the refugee had been protesting in front of the UNHCR office for the past two weeks. After his protest was ignored, he “cut his wrists” and died on Tuesday night.
Another source said that after the refugee cut his wrists and sustained severe injuries, UNHCR officials sent him to a local clinic in a taxi. According to this source, the refugee’s body was found at a train station by local police on Wednesday morning, who then transported him to a local hospital.
The source noted that the discovery of the refugee’s body at the train station, with severe wounds, made the incident appear suspicious.
The UNHCR officials and the Indonesian government have not yet commented on the incident.
This incident is the latest in a series of similar cases. According to the sources, at least 18 refugees from Afghanistan have committed suicide in Indonesia over the past few years.
Currently, thousands of refugees from Afghanistan are living in a state of uncertainty in Indonesia and neighboring Malaysia, awaiting resettlement to countries such as Australia, the USA, and Canada.
Most of the refugees are from the Hazara ethnic group, which has long been persecuted by the Taliban and other extremist groups in Afghanistan.
Like many other Southeast Asian countries, Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol on refugees, meaning it does not officially recognize refugees. As a result, refugees are not permitted to work and lack access to public schools and hospitals.
In recent years, dozens of refugees from Afghanistan have staged protests outside the headquarters of UNHCR and migration agencies in several cities across Indonesia.
They demanded that the UN refugee agency expedite their resettlement process, as many of them claim to have been stranded in the country for over a decade.
“Refugees in Indonesia are exhausted, with many suffering from mental and physical illnesses,” said a Hazara refugee who has been living in Indonesia for over 7 years. He added that some have attempted suicide out of despair, and a few have succeeded.
