Fawzia Reza-e and her two teenage sons watched in horror from their car as a Toyota Camry carrying her three cousins, a 14-week-old boy and his father spun out of control on Picton Road near Wilton early on Sunday morning.

A vehicle had overtaken them on the right and might have clipped their car, sending it first to the left and then into the path of an oncoming water tanker, she said. ''My cousin's car went into a zig-zag,'' she said. ''I saw the car hit them.''

The families, including 24-year-old Sharifa Reza-e, her husband Wali Qsim and their infant son, Erfan, were on their way to a picnic in Wollongong.

Sharifa had lived in Australia for only four years; her new husband for just one. Ms Reza-e said the lives of many relatives had already been lost in the conflict in Afghanistan.

Her two cousins aged in their 40s, Kobra and Habibah Reza-e, both widows who also died in the crash, fled Kabul to escape death and arrived in Australia via Pakistan in 2000.

''Both of them, their husbands died,'' she said. ''We are very, very sad because I'm alone here now.''

At her Pendle Hill apartment yesterday - which sits adjacent to the top floor apartment where her extended family lived until just two days ago - a steady stream of friends from the local Afghan community gathered to pay their respects. The wailing and weeping of distraught women dressed in black could be heard from the street below.

But Ms Reza-e said she could not lay her relatives to rest without the assistance of their brother, Najib Reza-e, who has been living in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur for eight years as a refugee waiting to join his family in Australia.

''I do not want anybody to put them in the grave except the brother,'' Ms Reza-e said. ''They don't have any man to help them.