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The calculus of numbers

The indefinite detention of EML019
by
September 2021, no. 435

Escape from Manus: The untold true story by Jaivet Ealom

Viking, $34.99 pb, 347 pp

The calculus of numbers

The indefinite detention of EML019
by
September 2021, no. 435

After surviving two perilous boat journeys when he thought he would die, Jaivet Ealom is taken into the control of Australian authorities and given the designation EML019 on an identification card that manages to misspell his name. He will be referred as EML019 for the next three years, having arrived in Australian waters just five days after 19 July 2013, when a policy change meant that asylum seekers coming by boat would be transferred to the Manus Island or Nauru ‘regional processing centres’ to face indefinite detention and with no hope of resettlement in Australia.

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