New Zealand apologises for 1970s ‘Dawn Raids’

Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, has formally apologised for police crackdowns in the 1970s that targeted the country's Pacific communities. Ardern on Sunday told a tearful crowd gathered at the Auckland town hall that her government was offering a formal and unreserved apology for the infamous “Dawn Raids”, during which police – often accompanied by dogs – raided homes to find overstayers who were then convicted and deported. At the time of the raids, many people from the Pacific islands – including Samoa, Tonga and Fiji – had come to New Zealand on temporary visas to help fill a need for workers in the country's factories and fields.

Al Jazeera's Wayne Hay reports from Auckland, New Zealand.

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