Protesters decry five-year migrant policy

Thousands protested in cities across Australia on Saturday to mark five years of a policy under which asylum-seekers and migrants have been turned away and detained on remote Pacific islands for years.

Messages were read aloud from those still languishing in deteriorating conditions on the islands, years after being detained.

Since 2013, anyone trying to reach Australia by boat has been sent for processing to the islands of Manus, which is part of Papua New Guinea, and Nauru. In 2013, Kevin Rudd, then the prime minister of Australia, unveiled a policy that barred the migrants from being settled as refugees in Australia as part of a resettlement arrangement with Papua New Guinea.

In the years that followed, thousands were sent to offshore detention centers on the small Pacific islands as a result of the policy. Subsequent Australian administrations maintained the policy despite objections from the U.N. Refugee Agency, international human-rights groups and Australian citizens.

The protesters Saturday carried signs denouncing the policy and calling for those still on the islands to be resettled in Australia.

About 1,600 people remain on the two islands, with 750 men on Manus and 850 men, women and children on Nauru, according to the most recent report from Human Rights Watch.