Manus cleared

Asylum seekers moved on

PAPUA New Guinea authorities said yesterday they had moved out the last asylum seekers who had refused for three weeks to leave a closed Manus Island immigration camp.

Police Chief Superintendent Dominic Kakas said police and immigration officials had removed all 378 men from the male-only camp over two days.

They were taken by bus to residences in the nearby town of Lorengau.

The men had expressed, fears they would face violence from local residents in alternative accommodation.

“Everybody’s gone. Everybody got on the buses, they packed their bags and they moved over,” Supt Kakas said.

But refugee advocates claimed officials used force and destroyed asylum seekers’ belongings to make them leave.

Video was released of officials in the camp wielding what appeared to be wooden sticks.

Water, power and food sup- plies were cut when the Manus camp officially closed on October 31, based on a PNG Supreme Court ruling last year that Australia’s policy of housing asylum seekers there was unconstitutional.

Australia pays PNG and Nauru to hold thousands of asylum seekers from Africa, the Middle East and Asia who have tried to reach Australian shores by boat since mid-2013.

Before confirmation the camp had been emptied, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull welcomed news that asylum seekers were leaving.

But activist group GetUp’s rights campaigner Shen Narayanasamy said, “I awoke this morning to frantic phone calls from refugees on Manus screaming, ‘Help, help, they are killing us’.”

Police maintain no force was used and Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton accused refugee advocates of “inaccurate and exaggerated claims”.