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Story: Refugees

Asian refugees from Uganda

Asian refugees from Uganda

As part of his policy to ‘Africanise’ Uganda in the early 1970s, the dictator Idi Amin expelled Asians who had lived there for several generations. Among the more than 200 Ugandan Asians who came to New Zealand were members of the Patel family, pictured here.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, Dominion Post Collection (PA-Group-00685)

Reference: EP/1972/5327/5

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Ann Beaglehole, Refugees – 1950s–1970s: refugee groups, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/1106/asian-refugees-from-uganda (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Ann Beaglehole, published 4 March 2009.

Comments

vali jamal, Phd
08 August 2010
Hey, that's US - I mean Uganda Asian expellees. I am writing a book about those times and I have used the above picture, except I thought they were arrving in UK. Thank you NZ for taking in c 200 of our people. I'd love if some of them contacted me to make an input into my book. I am an original Ugandan Asian, currently based at Kampala. [email protected]