Go Back To Where You Came From crew shot at by IS in Syria
Video
Image Go Back To Where You Came From: Participants encounter ISIS on the Syrian front lines 0:40 Play video The participants visit Syria to witness what the UN calls the worst refugee crisis in 25 years and come under fire by nearby ISIS insurgents. Courtesy SBS.
THEY went to see the real Syria and got a far more eye-opening experience than they bargained for.
A group of ordinary Australians literally came under fire during filming for the third season of the award-winning series Go Back To Where You Came From — by Islamic State militants.
Accompanied by an SBS production team, three of the series’ soon-to-be stars travelled to war-torn Syria to witness what the UN calls “the worst refugee crisis in 25 years”.
But as detention centre whistleblower Nicole - one of the show’s more open-minded participants - tells news.com.au, they got “a lot more than we bargained for”.
“When we crossed the border from Iraq into Syria, I kind of thought we would maybe go to a refugee camp near the border, meet some families, but once we crossed the border we drove for like four hours and it kind of dawned on me we were going to an active war zone,” the 25-year-old said.
After spending a night in a camp with Kurdish militants, Nicole and two other participants: anti-refugee campaigner Kim, and outspoken schoolteacher Andrew, were taken to the frontline where the soldiers were fighting against IS.
“At the time I didn’t really understand the severity of the situation we were in. I knew it was dangerous, but I didn’t quite fathom the immensity of it,” she says.
“They were shooting, trying to push IS back out of the villages. They told us they didn’t know our location and I didn’t really understand the severity of the situation we were in.”
It was after only a few minutes that Nicole realised the IS militants had figured out where the group was based because they had started shooting.
“Then I started realising maybe we were in something really serious,” she says.
“We had to move because they were shooting at us ... then we decided as a group - stupidly, I think - that we would go closer.
“We got in one of their utes and drove closer to them, through an abandoned school that ISIS had been through, full of bullet holes and everything and they started firing at us again. I thought, ‘I don’t want to stay here’.
“It wasn’t until days later I actually realised, there are people being killed here and we were there actively engaging in war with ISIS; we could have been killed.”
Nicole says it was one of the more eye-opening experiences she had filming the series, which aimed to show its participants what was behind the refugee crisis also travelling to Iraq, Jordan, Cambodia and a Darwin detention centre.
Even though she has had some experience working with refugees on Manus Island, the 25-year-old says she was even more hesitant in some situations than her “redneck” accomplices.
“They were way more excited and thinking like, it’s just a TV show, but I was like you’re in an active war zone you should be more respectful. I’ve seen people who have fled from here, people have died here and that’s why we’ve got Syrian people coming to Australia.”
The social experiment series sees its six participants immersed in all sorts of confronting situations.
At one point the Australians are given the opportunity to experience the Government’s “Stop the Boats” policy first-hand, being transferred from people smuggler’s boat to a lifeboat and turned around to Indonesia.
Go Back to Where You Came From is a special television event screening across three consecutive nights on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, July 28, 29 and 30, at 8.30pm on SBS.
Los programas de televisión pueden llegar a niveles inimaginables con el fin de atraer la atención de los televidentes. La televisión pública de Australia difundirá un programa de telerrealidad llamado ''Go Back To Where You Came From,'' en donde los participantes fueron llevados a Siria bajo el fuego cruzado de los terroristas de Estado Islámico y combatientes kurdos.

La cadena australiana SBS difundirá este martes el programa cuyo fin es hacer vivir a los concursantes la vida cotidiana de la guerra, que lleva a que miles de personas tengan que abandonar sus países para salvar su vida.

En un adelanto del ''reality'' compartido en YouTube se muestra a 3 de los 6 participantes, escoltados por hombres armados, corriendo en medio de las balas y del ruido de los disparos de mortero para refugiarse tras un edificio. El viaje a Siria es el primero de los 3 capítulos de este ''reality show'', que contempla una excursión a Bagdad y otra a Birmania.



Como es lógico, al estar en una zona de conflicto bélico, la vida de los participantes y realizadores fue expuesta al peligro, hecho que se cuestionó en las redes sociales y por varios expertos en temas militares.



No obstante, la cadena SBS indicó que tuvo en cuenta todos los peligros y que el grupo fue acompañado por una compañía de seguridad privada.

No es la primera vez que se realiza un plan de esta escala, ya que ''Go Back To Where You Came From'' está en su tercera temporada. Incluso, fue ganador de un Emmy internacional en la categoría entretenimiento sin guion en 2013. En las temporadas anteriores, el ''reality show'' estuvo en Afganistán, Somalia e Indonesia.