“Please help me!“: Woman’s desperate plea to Scott Morrison
A distraught woman fell to the feet of Scott Morrison, begging the Prime Minister to help her family in Africa.
Moments after concluding a press conference in Rockhampton on Tuesday, Morrison was confronted by the distraught woman pleading on her knees.
The woman begged the PM to help her family in Cameroon.
“I have no family left in this country. Help me, help me! … Every day my people are being killed. I go through trauma every day, every day. Please help me,” the woman sobbed.
Clasping her hands, Morrison crouched down and assured her the government would support people eligible for Australia's refugee intake.
“We’re bringing many people across under our refugee program from Africa, so we are doing that. If there are family members or others who are part of that process, we’ll pursue those matters with the immigration minister,” he said.
“I’m just alone in this country. I can’t go home to visit family, Thank you, thank you, thank you,” the woman said before falling at his feet again.
Morrison supported the woman to her feet, saying: “No, you don’t need to do that.”
Cameroon has been suffering from a vicious civil war that has killed up to 4000 civilians and displaced 700,000 since 2016.
Liberal senator Michelle Landry was also present and revealed the woman had previously reached out to her office and confirmed her concerns had been passed to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
“I’ll certainly be following up with another meeting and we will contact the relevant people to see what can be done about this,” she told reporters.
Landry said Australia had “quite a large foreign intake” but conceded COVID-19 had seen it reduced.
“It’s something that we certainly treat with a lot of concern, and I will be talking to the Prime Minister’s office about it. They said that they would catch up with us later today to find out what’s going on,” she said.