UN concerned about Australia “inhumane” camps in PNG

The United Nations human rights office repeated its concerns about “unsustainable and inhumane” Australian offshore processing centers, calling on the country to restore food, water and health services to refugees and asylum seekers in Papua New Guinea.

The detainees in the Manus Island Center have defied attempts by the governments of both Australia and PNG to close the camp, saying they fear violent reprisals from the local community if they are moved to other “transit centers”, Reuters reported.

More than 600 asylum seekers remain holed up for a fourth consecutive day. Electricity and running water have been cut off at the Manus Island camp since Tuesday, when it was officially closed and control turned over to the PNG military. But the men have refused to leave and locked themselves in the camp, citing fears they may be subjected to violence by local residents if they are taken to alternative shelters in nearby communities.

“We call on the Australian government ... who interned the men in the first place to immediately provide protection, food, water and other basic services,” UN rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing.

Australia has an obligation to do so under international human rights law and the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, he said.

There was no immediate comment from Australia or its representatives in Geneva. Its government has said the camp had been ruled illegal by PNG authorities and it had committed to supply other sites for 12 months.

Colville joined the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in warning of an “unfolding humanitarian emergency” in the center where asylum seekers began digging wells on Thursday to try to find water as their food supplies dwindled.

The remote Manus Island center has been a key part of Australia’s disputed immigration policy under which it refuses to allow asylum seekers arriving by boat to reach its shores, detaining them instead in PNG and Naura in the South Pacific.

“We repeat our overall concerns about Australian offshore processing centers which are unsustainable, inhumane and contradictory to its human rights obligations,” Colville said. Around 500 of the men have still not had their asylum claims processed, he said.

“And obviously the sooner the better, some of them have been there I think for four years,” Colville said. “So that’s a very long time to sit in effectively a detention center disguised as a regional processing center without your case being processed.”

“Australia’s policy of deterrence by rescuing people at sea, mistreating them and abandoning them has become a notion of cruelty,” Baloch said.