Scattered: Beth Evans in conversation with Aamna Mohdin

Join Hackney Council's Refugee, Migrant and Asylum Seeker Lead Beth Evans for an evening in conversation with the Guardian's community affairs correspondent Aamna Mohdin.

About Scattered:

In 2015, Aamna Mohdin travelled to Calais to report from the frontlines of the refugee crisis. When she returned to London, and discussed what she had seen with her parents, their response surprised her: didn't she remember being a refugee herself?

Aamna was faced with a reality she had been outrunning for nearly two decades: that her parents had been refugees of the Somali civil war; and that her arrival in the UK aged seven had been preceded by an early childhood in a refugee camp, followed by years of displacement and desperation – as her family, sometimes together but often separated, fought for a place to call home.

For the first time, Aamna's parents told her their story: of the lives they had built in the newly independent Somalia, and the shattering effects of civil war that followed. From London, she travelled to Somalia, a homecoming to a place that had never been home; before retracing her parents' flight to Kenya, and the Kakuma refugee camp – the site of a very present refugee crisis, now three decades in the making.

Scattered is a staggering investigation into the costs and consequences of displacement, from a young woman uniquely placed to explore the refugee experience and its aftershocks. A powerful reportage, it is also an epic story of returns and reunions; and a joyful celebration of family and belonging.

About Aamna Mohdin:

Aamna Mohdin is the Guardian’s first community affairs correspondent, reporting on the social, political and economic experiences of the UK’s diverse communities. She was previously a reporter at Quartz where she led the publication’s coverage of the European refugee crisis. Mohdin won a British Journalism Award in 2022, and her work on the Guardian's Cotton Capital special investigation was awarded a British Press Award 2024. She lives in London with her husband and son. Scattered is her first book.