It's Refugee Week and I wanted to share the story of Abbas Nazari. He was just a boy in 2001 when his family fled Afghanistan to escape persecution from the Taliban. They wound up on a rickety boat headed to Australia with 400 other hopeful asylum seekers. Shit got real when the engine stopped and the boat was stranded in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The situation became known as the Tampa Affair and it continues to shape our refugee policy to this day.

Read Abbas Nazari's book: After the Tampa.

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