Revisited: From youngster refugee to Guardian reporter: one journalist’s extraordinary story – podcast | Migration

This week we’re revisiting a few of our favorite episodes from 2024. This episode was first broadcast on 6 June

Aamna Mohdin was a younger rookie reporter when she received her first international task. She was being despatched to Calais to jot down about ‘the Jungle’, a casual refugee camp that had sprung up, made up of individuals hoping to cross the Channel for a greater life within the UK. She was nervous about doing a great job, however as she walked across the chaotic maze of tents with folks cooking on open fires, she started to really feel unusual and uneasy.

It wasn’t simply the disappointment of the tales she was listening to however one thing extra like deja vu. When she informed her mom about her journey, her mom requested a query that astonished Aamna: why would she wish to go to a refugee camp after they had risked every part to flee one themselves? The query despatched Aamna spiralling as she realised she had repressed her personal recollections of dwelling in a camp in Kenya as a toddler, and the way the household had fled to the UK.

Helen Pidd hears how that second, and reporting on the Black Lives Matter motion, made Aamna realise she had an advanced relationship together with her identification as a refugee. Aamna, now the Guardian’s group affairs correspondent, explains how she started unearthing her household’s story and piecing collectively her personal childhood recollections, visiting Somalia and the refugee camp wherein she had as soon as lived, to attempt to perceive what it meant to her.

With the refugee disaster displaying no indicators of abating, and more and more harsh rhetoric about “stopping the boats”, Aamna tells Helen what she needs folks understood in regards to the lives of many refugees. And the way the political discourse has affected her life.

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