The group of 50 men on Manus Island with approved refugee applications are being prepared to move from detention to temporary accommodation at the Lorengau transit centre and then into the PNG community. They were told they would be treated like the local Papua New Guineans, but detainees are resisting this move for fear of violence from locals.
An Iranian asylum seeker who went without food for 51 days in the Wickham Point Immigration Detention Centre in Northern Territory during late 2014 has resumed his hunger strike.
A teenage boy who was crew on an asylum seeker boat that arrived nearly two years ago will return home to Indonesia next week. He and another teenage boy have been kept in detention since their arrival, despite a government policy not to prosecute Indonesian children found on the boats. The second boy has also been released on parole and put in immigration detention.
Figures provided to Fairfax Media indicate that ten refugees have been released into the community since August 2014, after ASIO reversed their decisions that the refugees were threats to national security.
Prime Minister Abbott congratulated the new Sri Lankan president-elect Maithripala Sirisena and emphasised the two countries’ cooperation on addressing people smuggling and other issues.
Lebanon turned back Syrians attempting to cross the border under new visa regulations, which limit the amount of time they can stay in Lebanon. Lebanon is concerned about its capacity to accommodate more people displaced by the Syrian civil war.
UNHCR released its Mid-Year Trends 2014 report, which indicate that an estimated 5.5 million people became newly displaced during the first half of 2014. Of these, 1.4 million fled across international borders, with the remaining displaced within their own countries. Syrians have become the largest refugee population under UNHCR's mandate.