Margaret Teobasi Tadokata says the deadly riots and unrest in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara echo the ethnic tensions that forced her and her young family to flee the country more than two decades ago.
Ms Teobasi Tadokata arrived in Australia in 2000 with her husband and her then two-month-old baby.
Ethic tensions began as fighting between people from the island of Guadacanal, which is home to the capital Honiara, and settlers from the most populous island of Malaita Province.
From 1998 to 2003 internal ethnic conflict between militants in Malaita and nearby Guadalcanal became known as 'the tensions'.
It is estimated at least 200 people died.
"We couldn't go to Guadacanal. It's unsafe for me. And we couldn't go to Malaita, it's unsafe for my husband.
"It was so unsafe, it was so scary.
"So that's why we fled the country and we came over to Australia."
Ms Teobasi Tadokata recalls militia coming to her house, trying to harm her husband.
"They were actually trying to hurt him and we went into hiding for a few days until we got a visa and we could get out of the country," she says.
Ms Teobasi Tadokata watched on through the news and social media as riots broke out in Honiara last Wednesday, with protesters mostly of Malaita origin calling for Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to resign.
At least three people have died — found in a burnt-out building in Honiara's Chinatown — and more than 100 have been arrested for alleged looting and arson.
"It just breaks your heart, like seeing everything now people are posting," she says.
"It's really, really emotional at the moment.
"Your heart aches and really, you feel very helpless."
While far from home, she is in touch with friends and family members based on Honiara who have fallen victim to recent rioting.
"One of my uncles ... his whole shop has been burned down," she says.
"Now I know that all my aunties and cousins and uncles, that's their income, that's the family money that comes in.
"So it's gone like that. What's next? It's really, really worrying and stressful."
Chinese residents have experienced targeted violence before
For Phillip Leong, who is also based in Melbourne, watching the unrest in his home country is distressing — but nothing he hasn't experienced before.
The Brisbane born 41-year-old grew up in Solomon Islands but left in 2001, towards the end of the ethnic tensions.
"They are pretty much ... happy people, but when it comes to political issues there are different views and ideas," Mr Leong says.
"What I experienced is ... if there's disagreement, there's always got to be ... rioting and looting, and that's pretty sad.
"It was sad for me to experience that when I was there back in in the late 90s."
Mr Leong is of ethnic Chinese background and is also the president of the Solomon Islands Victoria Association.
His grandfather was Chinese and helped build Honiara's Chinatown.
Seeing Chinese-owned businesses targeted in recent riots has been difficult to watch.
"It's so sad because a lot of the Solomon Islands communities here, we all have families and friends back home," he says.
"A lot of us do have connections with the people back home, they have the businesses ... being looted, burned to the ground."
Mr Leong remains in touch with his family in Honiara and said it was painful to be so far away from his mother.
