A terminally ill Afghan refugee was moved to Australia this week and is receiving palliative care at a Gold Coast hospital. This follows calls from doctors to move him from what they have described as inadequate specialist palliative care on Nauru. The Australian Department of Home Affairs originally offered to send the man to Taiwan for palliative care.
The mother of Fariborz Karami, the Iranian asylum seeker who died on Nauru two weeks ago, wrote to the Australian Border Force seeking the return of her son’s body. Karami’s body remains refrigerated on the grounds of the regional processing centre, which continues to be under Australian control. Regarding the matter, a spokesman for the Department of Home Affairs advised that ‘these are matters for the Nauruan authorities’.
Two members of a Tamil asylum seeker family from Queensland were granted an urgent injunction preventing immigration authorities from deporting them. The family has been in immigration detention in Melbourne since March, when they were forcibly removed from their home in Queensland.
The Australian Government has not granted any humanitarian visas for ‘persecuted’ white South Africans. A spokeswoman for Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the applications were still being assessed and none had been granted. A senior official told Senate Estimates last month that Minister Dutton had never asked bureaucrats to prioritise refugee visa applications from white South Africans.
European Union leaders met in Brussels to negotiate a new deal to respond to the continent's continued issues with migration. In a final and broad statement, the European leaders agreed to set up joint asylum processing sites and restrict migrant moves within the bloc. Leaders also agreed to tighten their external borders and increase financing for some North African states to prevent migration to Europe. The deal comes following Italy’s recent refusal to allow several migrant rescue boats to dock at its ports, seeking shared responsibility for people arriving across the Mediterranean.
South Korea’s Justice Ministry said their laws governing the arrival of refugees will be tightened, after a rapid rise in the number of Yemeni asylum seekers. More than 552 people from Yemen arrived on the southern island of Jeju in South Korea between January and May. The country has granted refugee status to just over 800 people since 1994.
Almost 300 Syrian refugees left Lebanon this week, returning to Syria under the supervision of the UNHCR. In April, about 3000 Syrian refugees in the Arsal camps registered with the committee organising their return. They asked to return to their towns under a framework of reconciliation with the Syrian authorities.