Australia responsible for asylum seekers: UN

The United Nations has called on Australia to take responsibility for around 800 refugees and asylum seekers stranded in a detention centre on Papua New Guinea where it said many lack medical and mental healthcare.

The refugees — many from Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as Rohingya Muslims from Burma — were removed from a holding camp in the remote Papua New Guinea island of Manus in November when Australia decided to close it.

Australia’s Government — whose policy of holding asylum-seekers in offshore camps has bipartisan political support — has said the centre that the group was moved to on the island was adequate and that the Papua New Guinea Government was responsible for running it.

But Rico Salcedo, regional protection officer for UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, told journalists that Canberra had a duty under international law to take responsibility for the 800 who had been seeking sanctuary in Australia.

“What stood out the most from this mission . . . was a pervasive and worsening sense of despair among refugees and asylum seekers,” he said after returning from a trip to Manus Island. “Australia remains ultimately responsible as the state from whom refugees and asylum seekers have sought international protection for their welfare and long-term settlement outside of Papua New Guinea.”

Salcedo said that while services were still predominantly implemented by Australian-contracted providers, the Canberra Government was no longer co-ordinating the operation there.

At least 500 of the 800 remaining on Papua New Guinea await solutions or resettlement in third countries, the UNHCR says.

The UNHCR calls came as a group of 18 men departed PNG for US resettlement. The men were part of a larger group that were approved for US residency late last month.

Under the Obama Administration, the US agreed to take up to 1250 refugees, but transfers have been slow under Trump, who called the arrangement the “worst deal ever”. — Reuters