It was in April 1999 that former Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced that Australia would give temporary asylum to 4000 refugees struggling to survive in a Macedonian refugee camp after fleeing war-torn Kosovo. Singleton would soon find itself in the thick of this unprecedented situation. Employed by the Department of Immigration, Leigh Turner, was closely involved. Ten years on Leigh made an emotional return to the place that captured her heart. Di Sneddon reports.AS an Immigration officer immediately on the ground at the arrival of 4000 refugees from battle-scarred Kosovo, Leigh Turner thought she was well prepared for what was to come.
Behind the camera taking headshots for identification cards, Leigh found herself requesting people to smile.
During lunch she sat next to a gentleman sitting on his own. To be polite, she attempted to make conversation and enquired if he had enjoyed his lunch.
He looked at her with a blank facial expression she had not witnessed before.
A few days later she learned he had witnessed the rape and murder of his wife followed by the murder of his children.
How could he smile? How could he eat?
The memory, ten years on, still brings tears to Leigh’s eyes.
“I just felt so stupid for asking all these people to smile,” she said knowing that they had all experienced such horrific circumstances.
Leigh was assigned to the group destined for Singleton and spent the next six months at the frontline of this unique situation Australia was now in.
Initially, 800 Albanian Kosovo individuals were to go to the Singleton location but in the end, the figure was closer to 699.
Singleton soon became known as the ‘Safe Haven’.
Leigh, who now lives in Townsville, was in Singleton this week visiting family in the Upper Hunter.
She is aware of the ten-year Safe Haven reunion coming up on October 18 and is sorry she can’t attend but took the opportunity this week to visit the memorial and to place her hand in the handprint she made a decade ago.
Looking over the names – Fisnik, Ardian, Amir, Naile – and the memories come flooding back.
Not all the gum trees planted ten years ago in a semi circle around the garden have survived.
The one Leigh planted seems particularly healthy.
Looking through the double wire fence to the old World War II huts, now off limits, and one can almost hear the buzz of a place that was home to so many men, women and children who had found themselves in such extraordinary circumstances.
The Safe Haven was so very different to anything Leigh had been involved in previously.
She had experience with refugees as an immigration officer.
But this was different in that the people of Kosovo were not traditional refugees coming to Australia. Their time in Australia was only ever meant to be temporary.
Leigh spent long hours at the camp, liaising with the Kosovars on a daily basis and responding to their requests for assistance with often personal and sensitive situations.
She remembers spending her lunch break, sitting on a step with one of the young Kosovo girls. She learnt much of her spoken Albanian from this little lass.
Because of her work, the lists of names became friends and people that she grew to genuinely care about.
Her response was not unique. The Safe Haven had captured the heart of the Hunter, the heart of Singleton.
Leigh was one of only two people to take the plane trip home with the first 300 refugees who returned to Kosovo some six months later.
She said goodbye from the steps of the Kampuchea Air jet as her friends made their way to their village buses at the Skopje airport in Macedonia.
She could not step on Macedonian soil and simply waved at the group in front of her.
An out of focus, photograph shows the wave she received back. Thoughts of her friends are never far from her mind.
She wonders how many have survived and what happened to her little friend from the lunchtime step.
The trip home, on an empty jet, was as surreal as her previous six months.
As difficult as the experience was, Leigh said it was life-changing and so very rewarding.
An experience of a life-time that often causes her moments of deep reflection, like her visit to Singleton on Wednesday.
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