Angam Day, Nauru

The people of Nauru celebrate Angam Day to commemorate the birth of the 1,500th Nauruan at the end of the epidemic in 1920s. The Nauruan word angam means: ‘jubilation’, ‘celebration’, ‘to have triumphed over all hardships’, ‘to have reached a set goal’ or ‘coming home’.

Nauruans experienced a dramatic drop in population in 1920 due to the influenza epidemic. The total number of Nauruans decreased dramatically, reaching a level of only 1,068 people. This appalling ‘demographic drop’ caused fear for the continuing survival of community ... [More]

Nauru, pawn in Australia’s game
An oval-shaped South Pacific island lying near the equator 4,000 km from Sydney, Australia, Nauru is the smallest republic in the world – and an ecological basket case. It lies 42km (26 miles) south of the equator, and its nearest neighbour is Ocean Island (Banaba, part of Kiribati), 305km (190 miles) to the east. Until recently, Nauru was the richest nation per capita on earth. That was before the bird-droppings phosphate ran out ...

In 2001 ... the Australian government of ultra-conservative Prime Minister John Howard, in order to keep tinted refugees/asylum seekers from white Australian shores, began shipping desperate boat people to Nauru. The Nauru government, strapped for cash following the collapse of its economy, accepted refugees for money. In Nauru, people fleeing persecution in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq found themselves locked up in this tropical isle. Hot and isolated, the inhospitable 21 sq km island has been called a “living hell” for the refugees ...

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