‘‘My memory from the journey itself was pretty vivid, but what it lacked was an understanding of the greater context, politically, historically, that we were in.’’ That was the start of an international incident and the Australian government refusing to allow the ship to dock at its ports.Īfter a lengthy stand-off, a detention centre was established for the refugees on Nauru.Įventually, the New Zealand government offered to resettle some of them, including Mr Nazari’s family.īefore he agreed to write the book, he consulted his family - it was their collective experience he would be covering, not just his own.Īs he had been so young at the time of their journey, there were gaps in his memory family members were able to fill. When the rundown boat Mr Nazari, his family, and hundreds of other desperate refugees were on began to sink, they were rescued by the Norwegian fishing boat Tampa. Unfortunately, their dream of settling there coincided with a wave of growing anti-refugee sentiment, and a crackdown on the so-called ‘‘boat people’’ trying to enter the country. He was just 7 years old when he and his family fled an increasingly dangerous and fraught Afghanistan.Īfter arriving in Indonesia, they decided to seek asylum in Australia in mid-2001. ‘‘I wrote it because there are a lot of books written about refugees, but there are very few written by refugees to tell their own story.’’ He will visit Queenstown, Cromwell and Wanaka this week to talk about the book, which details his childhood, dramatic escape from Afghanistan, and the lives he and his family have built as refugees in New Zealand.

Writing became an outlet for him, and that resulted in his book After The Tampa. Mr Nazari was in Washington on a Fulbright Scholarship when a lockdown was enforced due to Covid-19 last year. Daisy Hudson spoke to Abbas Nazari about telling his family’s story and helping New Zealanders to understand events happening a world away.įor many New Zealanders, the Tampa saga is a fleeting memory, a short chapter in our history when New Zealand stepped in after Australia’s refusal to help desperate refugees.īut for Abbas Nazari (27), it means much, much more. PHOTO: SUPPLIED Twenty years after hundreds of refugees were rescued by Tampa, the plight of those in Afghanistan is just as relevant. Twenty years after fleeing Afghanistan with his family, Abbas Nazari is telling their story in his new book.

After the Tampa by Abbas Nazari