Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

How a Holocaust survivor's book helped this Rohingyan refugee survive brutal detention

Jaivet Ealom is the only known person to have ever escaped the notoriously brutal Australian-run refugee detention center on Manus Island. As a Rohingyan refugee fleeing Myanmar's campaign of genocide, Jaivet found himself imprisoned on the remote island near Papua New Guinea for three and a half years.

He describes it as a torture center. The story of his prison break is the stuff of Hollywood movies. He planned it for months: Leaving under the cover of darkness, posing as an interpreter and using forged passports. Against the odds, he arrived in Canada in 2017.

During Jaivet's detention, one...

 
 

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