reviewed by Louise Ward, Wardini Books
Abbas Nazari was born in Afghanistan, and knew little about the world beyond his village. After having watched the Taleban creep ever closer, wiping out anyone who they believed 'represented a violation of the model Islamic society' such as his own Hazara people, Abbas's father made the desperate decision to take his family and flee their home.
The family of seven (the youngest child still a baby) travel, at great personal risk, first to Pakistan, then to Indonesia, Abbas's father calling upon colleagues, old friends and acquaintances sympathetic to their plight along the way. They manage to secure passage on a boat that will take them to Christmas Island, if they can get there, and claim refugee status, the Australian government has to listen. The boat is not seaworthy and is desperately overcrowded. It manages to just about make it through a terrifyingly violent storm, and then drifts.
Abbas describes the crowded boat and the danger its passengers (including children and pregnant women) are in vividly so that the reader can place themselves there — sickness, malnutrition, frayed tempers and then a storm that blows apart any protection they have from the elements. But even this is not the worst of it.
Against all odds, a Norwegian cargo ship, the Tampa, comes to their aid and after some confusing conversations with the Indonesian and Australian authorities, and negotiations with the refugees, the captain heads for Christmas Island. What happens then is such a travesty of human rights abuses that it'll leave you fuming.