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Refugee who escaped the Taliban and self-immolated on Nauru speaks from Melbourne’s Park Hotel
Jamal* fled the Taliban for safety in Australia.
But he said it was Australia’s ongoing and indefinite detention that had left him permanently scarred.
- Erin Handley
- ABC
The refugee, known as Jamal, described the anguish that led him to a drastic act, setting himself on fire while in detention on the Pacific island of Nauru.
“I got third degree (burn) injuries … it’s deep scars and it will stay for my lifetime,” he told the ABC.
In mid-2013, the Rudd government declared that no asylum seeker who arrived in Australia by boat would ever be resettled in Australia, even if they were found to be a refugee.
That policy has been continued by the…