CW: infant death.

This gorgeous toddler is Abdi, who passed away yesterday in an Auckland hospital after his liver failed.

Late last year, Abdi was living as a refugee in Kuala Lumpur when he was diagnosed with liver failure and his parents were told he needed a transplant.

Malaysian refugee advocates rallied around to try to raise funds to pay for his surgery and care. While Malaysia informally allows many refugees to live in the country, as a non-signatory country (to the Refugee Convention/Protocol), it does not legally recognise their rights.

Refugees in Malaysia can only access healthcare at foreign rates or through charities. In a way, this is understandable - there are approximately 500,000 refugees and another 1.5million irregular migrants in Malaysia - the country can’t really afford to cover their healthcare.

As early as January, possibly earlier, the UNHCR knew that Abdi needed to be urgently resettled to a country where he could receive a liver transplant. The wheels turned painfully slowly. Covid didn’t help. Against the odds, and through many serious scares, little Abdi hung on.

Abdi’s family finally made it to Auckland two weeks ago. Here he is telling his dad, Qalif, to tell advocate and friend Suzanne Ling that he is on the plane.

In this conversation, just before they departed, Abdi’s dad Qalif told Suzanne and advocate for vulnerable children, Hartini Zainudin, "I am not educated, but now I know my children will be. He will grow up and be better. Better than me."

Tragically, that 11 month wait was just too long. Last week, Abdi was admitted to hospital, and yesterday he slipped away.

Abdi’s story is heartbreaking and it is devastatingly common. This happens over and over and over again. He is the second refugee infant based in KL that I know of in the last few months who did not get to lifesaving surgery in time. The other child was not yet one year old.

To say we move too slowly to resettle people is to put it mildly. Covid is no excuse. Under the Health Order, there was a provision for people to enter the country on humanitarian grounds. This is how Abdi and Qalif’s intake arrived on Oct. 17th. They could have come sooner.

The resettlement process is unbearably and inexcusably slow. It was like this long before Covid. People wait and wait and wait and then they die. We have to do better.

Little Abdi could have been alive today if his family had not spent the last 11 months powerless and waiting.