'Their innocence is gone': Tamil asylum seeker family exiled on Christmas Island say their youngest daughter has stopped eating - as they beg for mercy
- A Tamil family fighting deportation being held on Christmas Island until Friday
- The family's youngest daughter is not eating properly according to her mother
- Parents Priya and Nades arrived in Australia by boat but children were born here
- They were living in QLD town of Biloela until put in detention in March 2018
A Tamil family fighting to remain in Australia have said their youngest daughter is scared and has stopped eating properly.
The Sri Lankan family were flown to Christmas Island on Friday where they are currently being held for another day, as they seek to convince the Federal Court their youngest member needs the nation's protection.
The family has two Australian-born daughters - two-year-old Tharunicaa and four-year-old Kopika - and have been held in detention in Melbourne since they were removed from their Queensland home in March last year.
'Kopika is saying she doesn't like this place, she wants to go back to Biloela. Tharunicaa is not eating proper food. I think they are scared.' the children's mother Priya told The Guardian Australia.
A Tamil family fighting to remain in Australia have said their youngest daughter is scared and has stopped eating properly
'I don't have any family [in Sri Lanka], only my husband's family. It's not going to be a safe place for our family there.'
'I am asking to both of the ministers kindly and safely please let us go back to Biloela, and please give safety and peaceful life to my daughters.'
Friend Angela Fredericks, who had to fight for permission to go to Christmas Island facility where the family are the only residents, said the family's mental torment was heart-breaking to observe.
'The weight of Priya in my arms, just sobbing ... there's just so much heart-break, and so much fear and distress,' she told AAP from the island on Thursday.
'The girls ran up to me and held onto my legs. Kopika, she was always such a cheeky, bright little girl. I see so much frustration in her now.
'Yesterday she was just playing with sticks. Her actions, you can see it, she was just hitting the ground with the stick. I feel like her innocence has gone.'
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Federal Court Justice Mordy Bromberg on Wednesday ordered the federal government not to deport the asylum seekers to Sri Lanka until 4pm on Friday.
That will allow the court to continue hearing the case of two-year-old Tharunicaa.
A succession of courts, including the High Court, have previously found the parents and the eldest child are not refugees and do not qualify for Australia's protection.
The family's legal action is now focused on Tharunicaa's right to apply for a refugee visa, amid claims she will be subjected to 'serious harm' if she was sent to Sri Lanka.
Priya and the children's father Nadesalingam had settled in the Queensland community of Biloela, where they had their two children, after arriving separately by boat in 2012 and 2013.
Federal Minister for Immigration David Coleman has been called on to intervene in the case
Despite being Australian-born, Tharunicaa has been deemed an 'unauthorised maritime arrival' under the Migration Act, which stipulates children of asylum seekers who arrive in the country by boat cannot apply for a visa.
The family had been in long-term immigration detention in Melbourne until last Thursday, when they were put on a plane for deportation to Sri Lanka.
A judge issued a last-minute injunction - saving them from deportation until 4pm on Wednesday - and the family was taken off the plane when it landed in Darwin, before being sent to Christmas Island hours later.
The Federal Court was told late Tuesday night that Immigration Minister David Coleman decided not to consider using his discretionary powers to allow the family to stay.
The coalition government is now seeking to have the family's claim against deportation dismissed as it is 'futile'.
Tharunicaa failed a protection assessment on Tuesday, the court also heard on Wednesday, but the family's lawyers argued it was the first they had learnt of it.
Lawyer Angel Aleksov, acting for the family in the court, argued the government didn't have the power to remove people in cases involving 'live process' directed to a possible visa.
She called on Mr Coleman to 'lift the bar' and use his discretionary powers.
A view of the 'green zone' during a tour of the North West Point Detention Centre on Christmas Island, Wednesday, March 6, 2019
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