The first Afghan cameleers arrived in Melbourne in June 1860, when three men arrived with a shipment of 24 camels for the Burke and Wills expedition.
According to the 2021 Census, 41.1% of the Afghan population arrived between 1991 and 2010, following the rise of the Taliban insurgent group and the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan. The majority (51.8%) migrated in the 10-year period between 2011 and 2020.
Beginnings. The various colonies of Australia being under the dominion of the British Empire, the early settlers used people from British territories, particularly Asia, as navigators. In 1838, Joseph Bruce and John Gleeson brought out 18 of the first "Afghans", who arrived in the colony of South Australia in 1838.
Many Afghan cameleers sought business opportunities in the Goldfields. Their camels carried food and supplies to surveying and construction teams in the outback. The cameleers contributed greatly to the developments of goldfield towns in Western Australia such as: Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie, Menzies and Leonora.
Key points: Refugee settlement agency AMES Australia conducted a survey of more than 100 Afghans. Prices for basic essentials was the biggest concern for 78 per cent of respondents. More than 6,000 Afghans have been evacuated to Australia since the fall of Kabul.
Between 1979 and 1992, more than 20% of Afghanistan's population fled the country as refugees. Following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, many returned to Afghanistan, however many Afghans were again forced to flee during the civil war in the 90s. Over 6 million Afghan refugees were residing in Iran and Pakistan by 2000.
More than 120 years ago, thousands of camel drivers from Afghanistan and the provinces of modern day Pakistan and India left their homes and families for the unknown shores of Australia.
Labourers In the second half of the 19th-century South Sea Islanders were recruited to work on Queensland sugar plantations, Afghan cameleers played a vital role in the exploration and opening up of the Australian outback, and Japanese divers contributed to the development of the pearling industry.
Many Afghans were forced to leave the country and gradually the role of the camel trains was replaced by trains and trucks. The Afghan people who had contributed so much to life in opening up the outback to Euro-Australians were rewarded for their work with harassment and exclusion.
Reactions in Australia
The first adult refugees arrived in the 20-metre Kein Giang, which sailed into Darwin Harbour on 26 April 1976. The 20-year-old captain, Lam Binh, with his younger brother and three friends, made the 3,500-kilometre journey to find refuge.
Afghanistan (2.7 million) South Sudan (2.4 million) Myanmar (1.2 million)
Australia has a long history of accepting refugees for resettlement and over 800,000 refugees and displaced persons have settled in Australia since 1945.
Australia accepted a small number as refugees, increasing the Afghanistan-born population to almost 1,000 during the early 1990s. The majority settled in Victoria and New South Wales.
Afghans come from various ethnic backgrounds. Pashtuns form a plurality of the population, while Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks are the next largest and altogether the four form almost 60% of the population. They are of diverse origins including of Iranian, Turkic and Mongol ethnolinguistic roots.
The term "Afghan" is synonymous with the ethnonym "Pashtun", but in modern times the term became the national identity of the people, who live in Afghanistan.
The Australian Government has allocated 26,500 dedicated visa places for Afghans to migrate to Australia under the offshore Humanitarian Program through to 2026.
By the early 1850s, news of a gold rush in Australia had reached southern China, sparking an influx in Chinese migration to Australia. It is thought that approximately 7000 Chinese people came to work at the Araluen gold fields in southern NSW.
The next arrival of camel drivers was in 1866 when 31 men from Rajasthan and Baluchistan arrived in South Australia with camels for Thomas Elder. Although they came from several countries, they were usually known in Australia as 'Afghans' and they brought with them the first formal establishment of Islam in Australia.
The first camel was imported into Australia was purchased by the explorer J.A. Horrocks who unfortunately died after being kicked. The second lot were imported by the Victorian Government for the tragic Burke and Wills expedition.
Camels were first introduced into Australia in the 1840's to assist in the exploration of inland Australia. Between 1840 and 1907, between 10,000 and 20,000 camels were imported from India with an estimated 50-65% landed in South Australia. Camels are highly mobile and may forage over 70 km per day.
Aryana or ancient Afghanistan . [Kabul, Afghanistan: Historical Society of Afghanistan, 1957] Pdf.
The first known people were Indo-Iranians, but their date of arrival has been estimated widely from as early as about 3000 BCE to 1500 BCE.
Before the arrival of Islam in the 7th century, there were a number of religions practiced in modern day Afghanistan, including Zoroastrianism, Ancient Iranian religions, Buddhism and Hinduism. The Kafiristan (present-day Nuristan) region, in the Hindu Kush mountain range, was not converted until the 19th century.
The majority of the diaspora has been formed by Afghan refugees since the start of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979; the largest numbers temporarily reside in Iran and Pakistan.