Australia has agreed to pay A$28 million to compensate dozens of asylum seekers held in Woomera detention centre opened in the southern Australian desert in 1999. Within six months, it held nearly 1,500 people, most from Iraq and Afghanistan. A third of detainees were children.
Separately, human rights group Refugee Action Coalition on June 19 urged the government to medically evacuate a 36-year-old Kurdish-Iranian refugee sent to Manus Island in Papua New Guinea in 2013, saying his mental and physical health had significantly deteriorated.
The group released photographs of the emaciated condition of the refugee, Hatam Yekta, in Port Moresby, where he has been hospitalised.
“Hatam’s condition is an appalling example of the plight of the 10 or 12 refugees who are suffering serious mental health problems as a result of their mistreatment in Manus Island detention,” said Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul.
Australia’s government says Papua New Guinea’s government is responsible for the management of refugees remaining in Papua New Guinea, after an arrangement to process asylum seekers there ended in 2022.
Australia agrees to pay millions to compensate asylum seekers locked in desert. The Straits Times