Word: rokaya
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...women and children, 300 in all, were sheltering from the rain and waves in the tiny cabin, jammed so tightly there wasn't even space for Rokaya Satar to hold her two girls in her arms. The sisters had to stand, clinging to her skirt. And when the engine suddenly stopped and the wooden fishing boat was rocked back and forth like a toy by the 4-m waves, Rokaya could only grab her daughters' hands and try to avoid being knocked over by the screaming stampede of mothers and children. Then came another, bigger jolt as the boat capsized...
...told him that they had gone; the boat had sunk," Rokaya says, her voice utterly expressionless. "He cried out and said he couldn't bear to live if they were dead. Then he let go of the wood and was swept under the water by another wave. I never saw him again...
...Rokaya, one of 44 survivors, floated at sea for 20 hours, clinging to flotsam and catching raindrops on her outstretched tongue to slake her thirst before a fishing boat rescued her. Some 370 others perished in the disaster, disappearing under the waves along with what had been their hope for a new life, a battered 19-m Sumatran fishing vessel they had been told would ferry them the 36 hours from Tanjungkarang in Sumatra to Australia's Christmas Island. Most of the refugees on this trip were Iraqis like Rokaya, but the passenger list was a roll call...
...With luck, the deaths and suffering of so many will push governments to plug some of the holes that allow refugees to set out from Indonesia packed into rickety fishing boats. No one should have to suffer like Rokaya, sitting off to one side by herself in a white plastic chair, looking down at the dirty floor tiles, seeing nothing but the faces of her lost children...
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