Car crash ends Afghan refugee's happy story

In 2003, Sayed Ali Sarwari was back with his family for the first time in four years. He fled Afghanistan for Australia in 2000. His family, trying to join him, were detained on Nauru. Picture / Dean Purcell

The man killed in a four-car accident on Sunday was an Afghan refugee whose daughter and wife were detained on Nauru following the Australian Tampa boat row.

Sayed Ali Sarwari arrived in New Zealand in November 2003 after the Government agreed to reunite him with his family. Mr Sarwari had not seen his wife, Sediqa, and 6-year-old daughter, Sakina, for four years.

On Sunday the 32-year-old father died in Auckland Hospital. Mr Sarwari was the driver of a Mercedes that collided with three other vehicles near Te Hana.

The rear-seat passenger of one of the other vehicles, 77-year-old Ponsonby woman Annie Borgman, died at the scene.

Mr Sarwari's wife and her daughter are understood to have been injured in the accident.

Mr Sarwari fled Afghanistan in 2000 after his father was murdered there. He went to Australia, where he worked on a temporary visa as a tiler while he waited for his family to join him.

Instead they became detained on Nauru after Australian authorities refused entry to the boat they were on.

The New Zealand Government stepped in and agreed to take some of the refugees.

At the emotional reunification with his family in 2003, Mr Sarwari thanked the Government for making his dream come true.

"I will do my best to be good citizen," he told reporters at the time.

Mr Sarwari and his family spent six weeks at the Mangere Resettlement Centre after their arrival.

National co-ordinator Jenni Broom said she recalled Mr Sarwari's family and offered her sympathies to them.

She said it was always so "utterly tragic" when people escaped such circumstances as Mr Sarwari only to find hardship or trouble in New Zealand.

Mr Sarwari and his family had settled in Hamilton, where he is understood to have worked as a packer.

The fatal accident brings the road toll to 23, nearly double that at the same time last year when 13 people had died on the roads.

Police, roading authorities and ministry officials met in Wellington yesterday to discuss ways of reducing the road toll to 300 by 2010.

Last year 404 people died, the lowest since 1963.

Recommendations on how to bring down the road toll by 2010 will be sent to transport and road safety ministers in the next few months.