This week, Australian media focused heavily on the closure of immigration detention facilities on Manus Island. Essential services including electricity, food and water were cut off and the centre staff, including service provider personnel, have reportedly left the facilities.
More than 600 asylum seekers and refugees are remaining in the former detention facilities, refusing to move to accommodation in Lorengau because of safety concerns. UNHCR inspected two of the alternate accommodation facilities, and reported that one – West Lorengau Haus – is not ready for detainees to transition.
The United Nations human rights commission denounced the Australian Government for withdrawing support to former Manus Island detainees, and criticised Australia’s offshore refugee processing as ‘unsustainable, inhumane and contrary to its human rights obligations’. The commission called on the Australian Government to immediately provide protection, food, water and other basic services. Meanwhile, rallies in support of the detainees on Manus Island were held in Canberra and Brisbane on Friday and in Melbourne and Sydney on Saturday.
On Friday, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection released a statement addressing what they described as ‘significant misreporting’ on the situation on Manus Island, saying that the department’s staff no longer had authority to remain on the PNG Naval Base. The department said it had assisted its PNG counterpart for seven months to decommission the centre and to provide detainees with information about their options.
This week, New Zealand reiterated an offer to the Australian Government to settle 150 refugees from the immigration detention centres on Nauru and PNG, as a one-off intake that would be within New Zealand’s refugee quota.
A report presented to the UN general assembly identified that Australia’s ‘push-backs’ of asylum seeker boats are illegal under international law and ‘may intentionally put lives at risk’. The report focuses on government responses to worldwide flows of migrants across borders.