Children to be removed from atoll
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia aims to remove all asylum seeker children from Nauru within two months as concerns escalate about their deteriorating health after languishing on the tiny Pacific atoll nation for up to five years.
But Cabinet ministers said Thursday the government is maintaining its much-criticized policy of sending all asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australia by boat to immigration camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Refugee advocates welcomed the change for children, 46 of whom were born in Nauru.
Activists said there were only 38 children remaining on Nauru by Thursday. Papua New Guinea has male-only facilities and all asylum seekers there are adults.
The news was met with mixed reactions from those who remain on Nauru.
Helia, 15, a refugee from Iran, said she was worried that her parents may not be able to get work visas in Australia or lead normal lives there.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me if we move,” she said. “But if we stay here, I still don’t know what’s going to happen.”
She said two close friends moved to Australia a few months ago, and it has been good for them because they can finally go to school, make new friends and go out at night.
But Helia said she really wants to move to New Zealand, if Australia would take up its offer to resettle 150 refugees from Nauru and Papua New Guinea. That way, she said, she’d have a better future and be free.
Mehdi, 38, said it was great news that all the kids are being moved off Nauru, and they should have first priority. But he said he and the other adults who don’t have children wonder what will happen to them.
“We all worry about our situation, what will happen to us, what they will do to us after they evacuate all the kids from Nauru,” he said. “We are worried, and the situation is getting worse day by day.”
The refugees did not want their full names used due to fear of reprisals.
Australia’s top diplomat in Britain, High Commissioner George Brandis, told London radio LBC that the government expects all asylum seeking children to be moved from Nauru to Australia this year.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison offered few details on Thursday.
“I haven’t been showboating about it. I haven’t been drawing attention to it. It’s been done in accordance with our policies, our existing policies and I obviously don’t go into the operational arrangements,” Morrison said.
When Morrison took office in an internal government leadership ballot in August, there were 113 asylum seeker children on Nauru. Last week, the government said that number was down to 52.
Australia has all but ended the people-smuggling traffic from Southeast Asian ports since it announced that any asylum seekers who attempt reach Australian shores by boat from July 19, 2013, would never be allowed to settle in Australia.
Pressure has mounted on the government to make an exception for children, but some government lawmakers argue that would only encourage asylum seekers to put children at risk by bringing them on treacherous voyages to Australia on rickety fishing boats.
The United States agreed in 2016 to accept up to 1,250 refugees from Nauru and Papua New Guinea. But after more than a year of screening, only 439 have found new homes in the U.S.