Australia to move 200 asylum seekers to new PNG detention centre
SYDNEY: Approximately two hundred men held in a remote Australian-run detention centre will be moved to a new facility within weeks, the country’s immigration minister said.
Peter Dutton, Australia’s immigration minister, said those men who have their refugee applications denied, ruling them ineligible for resettlement to the United States, and who are from countries such as Iran which precludes forced deportations, will be transferred to a new detention facility within Papua New Guinea (PNG) after Oct 31.
“Those people, who total about 200, who have been found not to be refugees are to be moved into an alternative place of detention away from the regional processing centre,” Dutton told Australia’s parliament.
Dutton’s comments mark the first insight into how Australia plans to manage the end of its policy of detaining asylum seekers in PNG, where 800 men are held, many of whom for four years.
Canberra’s hardline immigration policy requires asylum seekers intercepted at sea trying to reach Australia to be sent for processing at camps on PNG’s Manus Island and on Nauru. They are told they will never be settled in Australia.
Question marks remain, however, about the fate of the remaining men
Those people, who total about 200, who have been found not to be refugees are to be moved into an alternative place of detention away from the regional processing centre. Peter Dutton, Australia’s immigration minister
on Manus as a refugee swap deal with the United States stalls.
Former US President Barack Obama late last year agreed to resettle up to 1,250 asylum seekers held in Australian immigration centres in PNG and Nauru. In exchange, Australia agreed to take Central American refugees.
Australia had hoped the men would have been resettled by Oct 31 but with the swap deal stalling under President Trump after the US hit it annual intake cap, Canberra is left seeking a solution.
Australia’s security contract with Spanish company Ferrovial SA will expire on Oct 31, forcing the closure of the camp that has been subject to violence from locals.
PNG officials have sought to transfer the men to a transit centre nearby but nearly all, citing fears of violence, have refused despite threats that it may rule them out of US resettlement. — Reuters