Abbas Karimi is the only Afghan at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games


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Paralympic swimmer Abbas Karimi is the only Afghan at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic games. But he is swimming for the refugee team, not Afghanistan. Karimi escaped Afghanistan as a refugee in 2016 and lived in camps in Turkey before coming to the United States. He was born without arms and was the first refugee to win an international medal in a Paralympic competition.

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Center-rated reporting

According to media bias experts at AllSides

AllSides Center-rated reporting May 2026

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100/100

Welcome back to trustworthy journalism.

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