“I tried to escape, and then one of them hit me. Hazem never allowed anyone to lay a hand on me.”

Youssef’s breath shortens with each word, his face disguised from the camera as he relives the moment his partner sought to shield him from a group of men on a Baghdad street.

Homophobic taunts and threats had become customary for Youssef and Hazem, but on this Saturday morning, in autumn 2014, the men who surrounded them were prepared for more. What began as physical intimidation quickly escalated to violence.

“[Hazem] grabbed a chair and threw it at him,” Youssef says. “The man drew his gun. Hazem told me to run.

“I didn’t run because I was weak. No. I ran because I promised never to say no to him. When I refused to run, he said, ‘You promised. Run!’”

For the four years of their relationship, Hazem had made his own promises: he would always protect Youssef, he said. He promised this each time Youssef suggested they leave a life of perpetual fear in war-ravaged Iraq.

It was a promise Hazem kept until the end.

“I turned my back to him. I ran,” Youssef says. He would never see his partner again. “I could hear the shots, one after another … the last shot was the fifth.”

Youssef’s heartbreaking account is one of four stories told in Australian filmmaker Jordan Bryon’s new documentary, Birds of the Borderlands, which is set to show at the Mardi Gras film festival.

It’s been more than four years since Youssef’s life was shattered. When we speak, he has just resettled as a refugee in Shepparton, Victoria.

“I can’t forget,” he says, through tears.

The four stories told in the film offer a snapshot of the constant fears of LGBTQ people in war-torn nations such as Syria and Iraq, and their daily struggle to navigate between life and death. It’s a story I am all too familiar with.

During my years as a journalist in Beirut, I encountered several young Iraqi men, some with visible signs of physical torture on their bodies – burn marks on their arms, lashes on their backs – who had fled their families when their sexuality was discovered.

In 2012, Shiite extremists in Baghdad perpetrated a horrific, violent campaign that targeted ostensibly “emo” youths: code for anyone who dressed in Western attire, had Western-style haircuts, or appeared effeminate. Dozens of young, mostly LGBTQ men were said to have been murdered, but no true figure was ever disclosed: Iraq’s government at the time denied the reports as “fabricated.”

But Youssef, who had been living in Baghdad, vividly remembers the campaign, which amounted to a homophobic pogrom.

“The campaign had a name: al-blokah. You can search it on Google and find videos on YouTube.”

Al-Blokah, Youssef explained, referred to a large concrete block that became the principal weapon of choice by Shiite extremists.

“If they suspected you were gay, they would lie you on the ground, get a blokah, and smash your head to death.”

Fearing he and Hazem would be caught up in the wave of anti-LGBTQ violence, they both did their utmost to hide their sexuality.

“I was hiding all the time, and I tried my best to act masculine. I changed what I wore. No T-shirts, no jeans, I shaved my head so there was no hairstyle. No rings, no piercings, no tattoos; I tried to look straight.”

However, not all in Youssef’s network were so lucky.

“I knew one man, my age, who was killed [in 2012]. His name was Saif.”

Covering that campaign, I met young men living in safe houses in Lebanon, as they awaited resettlement to Western countries. But even the wait was tumultuous, as families would often travel to Lebanon or Jordan to hunt down their estranged sons and daughters and kill them in the name of honour.

NGOs facilitating the safe and legal resettlement of LGBTQ refugees from Syria and Iraq, such as the International Refugee Assistance Project, would go to great lengths to keep secret the real identities and locations of the young men and women in their protection.

I don’t want this news of Youssef being resettled to make the Australian government look fantastic, because they’re not Jordan Bryon, film-maker

The longer the wait, the greater the danger. Youssef, who preferred not to disclose his family name, waited in Amman for four years and three months before the Australian government accepted his asylum plea.

Jordan Bryon, who onscreen assumed the dual role of filmmaker and a vital support for the four LGBTQ individuals in the film, lambasts the Australian government’s drawn out process that, with each day of waiting, endangered Youssef’s life.

“I don’t want this really great news of Youssef being resettled to make the Australian government look fantastic, because they’re not,” Bryon says. “They move incredibly slowly, and they don’t fulfil their promises.”

After his partner was violently murdered, Youssef waited for more than four years, in danger, before Australia accepted his asylum plea. Photograph: Jordan Bryon

The filmmaker, who is genderqueer, singled out the Australian embassy in Amman, which Bryon says dragged its feet with Youssef’s paperwork.

“His case was shifted to emergency status about three years ago. For someone lifted to emergency status to wait three years – that’s appalling.”

The embassy, Bryon says, also showed little interest in Bryon’s own plight – running foul of Jordanian authorities and ultimately being deported from the country for trying to aid a Jordanian transgender teen.

“Working with the embassy in Amman was an absolute nightmare,” they say.

But the long wait for Youssef finally came to an end when, last month, he touched down in Melbourne. He has now found peace and an opportunity to begin anew.

“I will study English. And I will open my own art studio,” he says.

Youssef’s extraordinary journey surfaces a familiar Australian story: that of migrants from all across the world escaping hardship to seek another chance at life.

Youssef’s wounds, however, will take time to heal. Sharing his story – with Bryon, and with me – is just one step in the process.

“It hurts to talk about it, and I always try to forget, but I know it will help others.

“February 10 is his birthday,” he says. “He would have been 39.”

• Birds of the Borderlands is screening in Sydney and Parramatta at the Mardi Gras film festival, which runs until 28 February 2019



