The Tamil mum who recently returned to Australia after four years in detention has revealed she begged an officer to let place her young daughter on her breast for comfort as they were swooped on by dozens of AFP officials - but was refused.
At 5am on March 4, 2018, the Nadesalingam family - mum Priya, dad Nades and daughters Tharnicaa and Kopika - heard a loud knock on their door in Biloela, Queensland, where they'd lived since 2014.
Nades opened it and was shocked to see what he said were around 50 officers from Australian Border Force, police and private security company Serco.
Before they knew it, and with no time to pack, they were in two separate vehicles – Priya and the children in one, Nades in another - with no idea where they were going.
Priya was kept in the back, jammed between officers, while the children were up front, crying and desperate for their mum.
'I was still breastfeeding Tharnicaa and I asked the officers if I could put her on my breast to comfort her,' Priya told Australian Women's Weekly.
Despite her pleading, they refused. 'I said, "What wrong have I done to deserve this? Are you human? Do you have children?"'
Priya said a female officer told her that this was, 'not something for you to ask' and that baby Tharnicaa would eventually go to sleep.
But she did not. She was hysterical for the whole 90 minute journey to what turned out to be Gladstone Airport.
'Even today, the question in my mind is, "Why were we treated this way?'' said Priya. 'I still have no answer. Why did they need so many security people? Why did they separate us from our children ?.
What followed for the family was four years of a bureaucratic nightmare that saw them first moved to the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation and then two years as the sole residents at the Christmas Island detention centre.
Keeping them on Christmas Island alone cost Australian taxpayers an estimated $6.7million.
'At least what happened to me in Sri Lanka happened in a war. Here in Australia there is no war. This was like a silent war,' said Priya.
Before being held on Christmas Island they were twice almost deported to Sri Lanka, from where Nades and Priya separately came to Australia by boat, seeking asylum due to the terrible situation for Tamils after the country's 26-year-long civil war.