As far as Fiona Hill is concerned the Syrians with whom she lived on-and-off for more than 30 years are family.
Her annual visits to the village of Yusef Pasha on the banks of the Euphrates embedded her in the fabric of the community.
She helped build a house and completed an anthropology PHD on the village's history.
“They became my family. They kind of mirrored my blood family here in Australia in terms of numbers - it was births, deaths and marriages over the course of 30 years and I've continued to go back,” she said.
“We don't know if we're on a list, if we're on a list that's actually progressing or if we should have been in a camp or if we should have done something else.”
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
That ended when IS took control, and the stories of their brutal rule in Yusef Pasha are familiar and sickening.
“They took him outside and called for his family his children to gather round him and beheaded him and everybody's, 'What for? What's the message?' And no-body knew,” Ms Hill said recounting one of many tales of unfathomable human slaughter.
Most members of Ms Hill's family managed to escape to neighbouring Turkey, where they have been waiting for news of their Australian humanitarian visa application.
She said a welcoming home and supportive community is ready to accept the applicants in regional Victoria, but frustration has set in after countless approaches to the Department of Immigration yielded little.
“We don't know if we're on a list, if we're on a list that's actually progressing or if we should have been in a camp or if we should have done something else,” Ms Hill said.
While unable to comment directly on Ms Hill's case, Victoria's Multicultural Commissioner Helen Kapalos said regional centres are a good fit for Syrian refugees.
“We know that settlement outcomes can be vastly improved when refugees enter regional areas - not just economic, it can be social and cultural capital they bring to that town,” Ms Kapalos said.
South Gippsland is seen as already having the structures and services in place to accommodate at least some of the intake, having recently welcomed refugees from Myanmar and South Sudan.
According to the federal government, more than 57,000 people have applied for 5,000 places in the Special Humanitarian Program this year.
“Priority is given to those with the closest family links to Australia. These are applicants who are members of the immediate family of their Australian proposer," a statement from the Immigration Department said.
Ms Hill criticised this narrow framing of 'family', when the family she's been informally adopted into "are so well-known to Australians, who have Australian family here whom they can come and live with immediately in a community that's ready to receive them".
Since Kurdish militia forced IS from Yusef Pasha, the home she helped build has become military headquarters. It only adds to the frustration, but Ms Hill continues to lobby on her Syrian family's behalf.
