Embrace asylum seekers: survivor's final wish

Mourners at a memorial service for SIEV-X survivor Amal Basry were asked last night to help her enact her dream - to welcome people fleeing persecution.

The Iraq-born woman spent 30 hours in the sea clinging to the corpse of another woman after an Indonesian peopl-smuggling boat, overladen with asylum seekers, sank in 2001.

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre's Kon Karapanagiotidis said: 'Her dream was that other people would not suffer as she did.'

Mrs Basry, 51, who died on Saturday, was on her way to join her husband in Australia when the boat sank. After her rescue, she was returned to Indonesia where she had to wait nearly a year to come to Australia, and spent three years on a temporary protection visa before being granted permanent protection last year.

Mrs Basry helped rescue her teenage son Rami from drowning, after insisting that rescuers continue searching for him. He was the last person pulled from the water.

Prayers at the memorial service, held at the Imam Ali Islamic Centre in Fawkner, were led by Sheikh Ali al-Kaaby.

Mourners, who included members of the Iraqi Al-Amel Temporary Protection Visa Holders Association, refugee advocates and actors, heard how Mrs Basry had to tread water surrounded by corpses as she waited to be rescued after the SIEV-X sank.

Actress Anne Phelan, who played the role of Mrs Basry in the Playbox production of Something to Declare by Actors For Refugees, said Mrs Basry's story was retold in performances in every state of Australia.

'She swallowed all her fears and said "I will tell what happened" and it didn't matter what it cost her,' she said.

Her bravery was illustrated by honouring a promise to appear at a public meeting in Woodend two years ago, despite having just had treatment for secondary cancer, Phelan said.

Mourners were told that when Mrs Basry received permanent residency last year, it allowed her to travel to Iran to see her children, grandchildren and father.

She hoped that her eldest son and daughter and grandchildren could come to Australia.