Rohingya refugee sent to PNG by Australia dies

SYDNEY: A Rohingya refugee from Myanmar died yesterday after jumping from a bus on a remote Papua New Guinea island, almost five years after he was sent there by Australia, officials said.

Canberra has sent asylumseekers who try to enter the country by boat to camps on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island or Nauru in the Pacific for processing, with those found to be refugees barred from resettling in Australia.

The harsh policy is meant to deter people embarking on treacherous sea journeys, but the United Nations and other rights groups have criticised the camps’ conditions and long detention periods.

Australia’s Home Affairs Department confirmed the death but did not provide further details.

The Refugee Action Coalition’s Ian Rintoul said the man, a 32year-old called Salim, was believed to have jumped from a moving bus near a refugee transition centre and was struck by its wheels, dying at the scene.

Most asylum-seekers on Manus believed the man’s death was a suicide, according to a statement from the coalition.

He was the seventh asylumseeker to die on Manus since Canberra’s offshore detention regime began in July 2013, in addition to three others who died on Nauru over the same period, Rintoul said.

“The Rohingya refugee had suffered for a long time with a medical problem” and had previously been sent to Australia for treatment, he added in a statement.