There are now only 35 refugee children on Nauru, with more expected to leave in the coming days.

Fifty minors have arrived in Australia since October 15 - partly as a result of Australian Federal Court orders - and the government has signalled a desire to "quietly" get all children off the island by Christmas. Continue reading

New Zealand first made the offer in 2013, but the coalition government has not accepted it arguing that the refugees would be able to use New Zealand as a back door to Australia.

But after a recent byelection, the Coalition is likely to become a minority government, and it now says it would accept the New Zealand offer if opposition MPs support its Bill to ban all refugees held offshore from ever returning to Australia.

The Labour Party (ALP) and the Greens have opposed the Bill since it was introduced in 2016.

Both parties now say they will support the legislation under certain conditions.

They are demanding that all children and their families are removed from offshore detention camps.

And they say a travel ban should apply only to the cohort sent to New Zealand, and not everyone who had arrived by boat to Australia since July 2013.

Last week, the New Zealand foreign minister, Winston Peters, said such a ban would create a second class of New Zealand citizenship.

But on Wednesday, the New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the offer would still stand if the refugees were banned from Australia by Australian law.

The Refugee Action Coalition in Australia is calling on all Labour, Green and Independent politicians to completely reject the Coalition's lifetime ban bill.

They say there is every reason to believe that a resolution to Parliament to accept the New Zealand resettlement offer, immediately and without conditions, would be passed with the support of dissident Liberal MPs.

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• radionz.co.nz
• refugeeaction.org.au
• Image: worldvision.org.nz

"Tragedies linked to immigration are not limited to the Mediterranean, North Africa or the border between Mexico and the United States.

There are other routes that do not make it into the international news headlines, but that see just as much immigrant traffic and are often the scene of even worse conditions."

Two new reports from two refugee organisations have detailed cases of adult and child trauma sustained by people in Nauru who are seeking asylum.

This week New Zealand's prime minister Jacinda Ardern, along with Australian and other Pacific Island leaders, will be on Nauru - an island about the size of Auckland's Rangitoto - for the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting.

Ardern says there is nothing New Zealand can do about it.

"As far as I'm concerned, we have made our position abundantly clear. New Zealand is here and willing to help. We've made the offer both to Australia and directly to Nauru.

"Really it's beyond our own capacity to deliver on it."

When asked whether her hands were tied she said: "You could say that."

Overwhelming evidence of abuse

The Refugee Council of Australia report, released on Monday, says there is overwhelming evidence of abuse.

It reports that experts assessing people on Nauru say they are among the "most traumatised they have seen, even more traumatised than those in war zones or in refugee camps around the world."

Children as young as 7 are making repeated suicide attempts, dousing themselves in petrol, and becoming catatonic.

And in an interview with the BBC Natasha Blucher, detention advocacy manager at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC), said ASRC works with about 15 children who have either made repeated suicide attempts or are regularly self-harming.

She said she was unable to share details of specific cases due to privacy and safety concerns.

They are "working the system"

President Baron Waqa, in an interview with Australia's Sky News which was broadcast on Saturday, said: "We tend to think that these kids are pushed into something that they're not aware of.

"It's a way of working the system and probably short-circuiting it just to get to Australia."

He blamed the Australian advocates for the plight of refugee children detained on the island.

It offered no evidence for this claim.

Source

• osservatoreromano.va
• stuff.co.nz
• radionz.co.nz
• radionz.co.nz
• bbc.co.uk
• Image: bbc.co.uk

They are Afghan, Pakistani, Rohingyan and Sri Lankan.

The group did not include refugees from Iran or Somalia or any of the Muslim majority countries banned from the US, which account for about half of all refugees on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and Nauru.

A spokesperson for Australia's Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton says the refugees have made the trip as part of a deal struck between former US president Barack Obama and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Advocate Ian Rintoul said the absence from the group of refugees from the banned countries showed the Australian government had no plan to secure the future of those people.

About 900 refugees remain on Nauru, including about 130 children.

Last week the Guardian reported that a 14-year-old refugee girl who had attempted suicide on Nauru by trying to set herself on fire was to be moved to Australia within days.

She is the eighth child moved from the island following a court order or the threat of legal action.

The Australian Border Force had rejected recommendations from doctors on the island to immediately move the girl to an Australian hospital for acute psychiatric treatment that isn't available on Nauru.

An urgent application brought by the National Justice Project to have the girl moved was set to be heard in the federal court last Friday morning in Sydney.

But just as proceedings commenced, the Australian government agreed to move her and her family to Australia.

About 220 refugees from Nauru have now been moved to the US with about 110 from Manus.

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• heguardian.com
• newstalkzb.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

Dr Koloamatangi said in the absence of criticism from Australia, whose offshore detainees are held on Nauru, New Zealand, the Forum and the UN should speak out.

He said the Forum's Biketawa Declaration expected members to abide by the rule of law, good governance, transparency and accountability.

"One would have to say that Nauru is not abiding by those values, and something has to be done," Dr Koloamatangi said.

"Now if Australia is not doing it, then I would think that New Zealand is the next in line, plus the Forum, should be exploring options about how to engage with Nauru."

The Refugee Action Coalition's Ian Rintoul hopes Pacific Islands Forum Leaders will draw attention to the plight of refugees when the Pacific Forum leaders meet there in September.

"It is a rare opportunity for international media to have access to Nauru," he said.

About 930 people including about 140 children were being held in the Detention Centre.

"It's an issue of Australia and the way in which Australia has tried to draw places like Papua New Guinea and Nauru into undermining the refugee convention," Rintoul said.

He said the situation should be a cause of some concern for the whole of the Pacific and Asia-Pacific region.

"So we are hoping it does get an airing,"

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• radionz.co.nz
• Image: refuge action coalition

On Wednesday, speakers addressed a rally of about 900 detainees demonstrating against moves to evict them.

Under PNG law the Australian-run facility must close by November after four years of operation.

The protest was a response to cuts to water and electricity at the Foxtrot compound which is part of the original facility.

In May the Australian government announced the facility would shut down after it was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea.

The Australian authorities want the refugees to move to a new site; the protesters say they are being aggressively relocated to the Transit Centre in nearby Lorengau

The East Lorengau Refugee Transit Centre, the new facility on Manus Island, is intended to temporarily house refugees awaiting resettlement.

"We are not safe outside the fences, and immigration are trying to make life impossible for us inside," said Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish journalist who fled Iran and has been on Manus Island since 2013.

"We are protesting peacefully for our human rights, and to call on Australia to uphold its commitments to offer us protection as refugees," he said.

The detainees, men who sought asylum in Australia, say they are being forced to settle in PNG.

Iranian refugee Amir Taghinia said at yesterday's rally that Australian media was censoring news of the protest.

"Power and water mean nothing. Even if they cut the food we are not going to go to Lorengau, we do not want to be settled in PNG," he said.

The men also marked the first anniversary of the death of Pakistani refugee Kamil Hussain, who Mr Boochani said had drowned while being "held against his will in an Australian concentration camp."

Source

• RNZ
• New York Times
• Image: ABC

He said the agreement, to be administered with the United Nations Refugee Agency, is available only to those currently in the processing centres and will not be repeated. Continue reading

This comes as Canberra rejected a report by the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International which found that it is ignoring appalling human rights abuses against asylum seekers and refugees held in detention on Nauru.

In a statement, Australia's Department of Immigration and Border Protection said it strongly refuted many of the report's allegations, and that it does not exert control over Nauru's laws. Continue reading

Most of them have been held there for three years. They routinely face neglect by health workers and other service providers who have been hired by the Australian government.

And, as well they suffer frequent unpunished assaults by local Nauruans.

They endure unnecessary delays and at times denial of medical care, even for life-threatening conditions. Many have dire mental health problems and suffer overwhelming despair—self-harm and suicide attempts are frequent. All face prolonged uncertainty about their future.

Refugees and asylum seekers interviewed said they have developed severe anxiety, inability to sleep, mood swings, prolonged depression, and short-term memory loss on the island.

Children have begun to wet their beds, suffered from nightmares, and engaged in disruptive and other troubling behaviour.

"Australia's policy of exiling asylum seekers who arrive by boat is cruel in the extreme," said Anna Neistat, Senior Director for Research at Amnesty International, who conducted the investigation on the island for the organization.

"Few other countries go to such lengths to deliberately inflict suffering on people seeking safety and freedom."

Michael Bochenek, Senior Counsel on Children's Rights at Human Rights Watch, conducted the investigation on the island for this organisation.

"Driving adult and even child refugees to the breaking point with sustained abuse appears to be one of Australia's aims on Nauru," he said

Amnesty International says Australian authorities are well aware of the abuses on Nauru.

The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a Senate Select Committee, and a government-appointed independent expert have each highlighted many of these practices, and called on the government to change them.

The Australian government's persistent failure to address abuses committed under its authority on Nauru strongly suggests that they are adopted or condoned as a matter of policy.

Source

• pacific.scoop.co.nz
• Image: michelleparsons.com

The nine leaders from different Church traditions were protesting the deportation of 267 men, women and children to detention camps on the Pacific island of Nauru.

The majority of them are asylum seekers who were brought from the island to Australia because they needed treatment for serious medical conditions.

More than 30 are babies born in Australia to asylum-seeker mothers.

A one-year-old baby named Asha and the child of Nepalese asylum-seekers, was held on Nauru with her parents before being brought to the Australian mainland for medical treatment last month.

On Sunday Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said Asha and her parents would be sent to community detention from Brisbane's Lady Cilento Children's Hospital.

Refugee advocates welcomed Dutton's announcement, hailing it as a victory for their campaign against the deportations to Nauru of Asha and 266 other asylum-seekers also in Australia for medical care.

"No-one should be in detention on Nauru, where there is no functioning hospital - but it would be particularly cruel to rip children out of classrooms and send away these 37 babies born on Australian soil," said Love Makes a Way spokesperson Kate Leaney.

About ten church communities are supporting refugees.

All are willing to open doors and provide hospitality to the asylum seekers.

"We offer this refuge because there is irrefutable evidence from health and legal experts that the circumstances asylum seekers, including children, would face if sent back to Nauru are tantamount to state sanctioned abuse," said Peter Catt, the Anglican Dean of Brisbane.

Source

• christiantoday.com
• christianitydaily.com
• channelnewsasia.com
• Image: d.christiantoday.com

It is understood that police seized electronic items such as phones and laptops during the raid on Saturday, with the operation believed to be related to stories leaked to media in Australia. Continue reading

The messages on the signboard outside the church on the NSW Central Coast, of which Father Rod Bower is archdeacon, have taken aim at detention centre operator Transfield on more than one occasion.

Another read "Hesta divests Transfield. Good on ya!" — a reference to a superannuation fund's decision to divest its Transfield shares. Continue reading

Australia's Department of Immigration and Border Protection says Nauru's government has been seeking medical backup treatment options.

Asylum seekers held on Nauru who need medical care will no longer be flown to Australia but instead taken to Papua New Guinea.

This move will likely stop people seeking legal injunctions against their detention.

According to an internal document obtained by Guardian Australia, detainees who are referred by International Health and Medical Services (IHMS) for further medical investigation or treatment will now be sent to the Pacific International hospital in Port Moresby.

Brisbane General Practitioner and the spokesman for Doctors for Refugees, Dr Richard Kidd, says the refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru are Australia's responsibility.

"It's unethical of Australia to be sending people to a hospital in Papua New Guinea where health resources are very, very stretched and it's wrong of us to be tying up their resources with our patients."

At the beginning of July The Australian Border Force Act came into effect and provides for up to two years in jail if workers disclose information about conditions at detention centres.

Former health and social workers have already rallied against the new law, challenging the government to silence them.

In a letter to Australia's prime minister, Tony Abbott, the WMA's president, Dr Xavier Deau and chair Dr Ardis Hoven, say the new law effectively silences physicians who address the health conditions of asylum seekers.

Source

• theguardian.com
• radionz.co.nz
• radionz.co.nz
• Image: resources3.news.com.au

It says four Australian Federal Police officers will also travel to Nauru to advise local police.

Both developments are part of the government's response to the damning findings of the Moss Review into allegations of sexual abuse inside the Nauru detention centre, which was released in March.

The review, conducted by former integrity commissioner Philip Moss, found evidence of rape, sexual assault of minors and guards trading marijuana for sexual favours from female detainees.

It also cleared Save the Children staff of claims they had coached detainees to embarrass the Abbott government.

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, says the child protection panel consists of three highly skilled and independent individuals in the fields of law enforcement, child protection and public sector accountability — John Lawler, Margaret Allison and Dominic Downie.

He says two of the police officers being sent to Nauru have extensive experience in investigation sexual assault allegations and will provide Nauru police advice on how to manage such investigations.

Source

• Radio New Zealand
• Sydney Morning Herald
• Image: Radio New Zealand

However some are claiming the social media blackout was directed by the Australian government to assist its Cambodian resettlement policy.

The Nauru government says it is restricting internet access to block pornography, especially child pornography.

In a statement issued to explain the ban, the government says "pornography is not consistent with the faith and values" of the people of Nauru.

The opposition in Nauru claims the government ordered the country's only internet service provider Digicel to shut-down certain sites, like Facebook.

But the government says it has not blocked access to Facebook and claims to the contrary are politically motivated.

It says it is possible some social media sites have been blocked since it issued a ban on pornography sites.

Suzette Clark, a catholic sister and the former vice-chair of the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce, says a ban on Facebook, even for a short time, will be distressing for asylum seekers on Nauru.

Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre says her sources say this ban on Facebook has nothing to do with the government of Nauru, but is a directive from the Australian government.

Source

• Radio Australia
• Radio Australia
• Radio Australia
• Radio New Zealand

Advocates from Save the Children, the charity employed to look after the children, say the minors arrived last Sunday morning and will be held in a detention centre that houses family groups.

Save the Children says research shows the longer the children are kept in detention the more it impacts their physical wellbeing and mental health.

The organisation's director of international programs, Scott Gilbert, says the Government should have never sent the the unaccompanied minors into offshore detention.

Australia's immigration Minister Scott Morrison has stood by the Government's policy of placing children in offshore detention, and the way he carries out his responsibilities as the legal guardian of unaccompanied children.

"I do that by ensuring that the facilities are in place in Nauru and when my guardianship responsibilities are transferred to justice minister in Nauru, that's how I do it and that's what I've been doing," he said.

Mr Morrison also reiterated the Government's determination to implement the policy with no exceptions.
Source

• Radio Australia Pacific Beat
• ABC News
• Image: ABC.net.au

All of those attempting suicide were Iranian or Iraqi asylum seekers among those transferred from Australia to Nauru on 21 January, 2013

"Just as with the recent suicide attempts on Manus Island, those on Nauru reflects the despair and desperation that engulfs asylum seekers in the remote detention centres.

Many are tricked into the transfers initially believing they are being moved into the community like others who arrived with them," said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.

"People on Nauru still have no idea when their refugee process will begin. And conditions are deteriorating in the camp itself. The construction site for the new detention building has cramped the small site even further. The recreation space has been dramatically reduced.

The Australian has reported that 88 detainees will soon be to moving out of tents and into a newly built block.

It says that, unlike the flimsy weatherboard huts used in the first iteration of the Pacific Solution under the Howard government, the new buildings are built to last.

"Australian and local workmen were swarming over them yesterday to complete the finishing touches in time for a planned handover next week."

The initial stage of the project is a twin-storey accommodation centre of about 1000sq m, containing 44 rooms grouped in three pods, connected by covered breezeways.

Asylum-seekers will sleep two to a room of 4m x 3.5m. The centre is the first of 10 planned accommodation blocks in a camp that will cost more than $70 million to build and hold up to 1500 detainees.

Source

• RefugeeAction.org.au
• The Australian
• Image: ABC

This is according to a spokesperson for Australia's Immigration Minister.

Major Paul Moulds, of the Salvation Army, is quoted as saying that the uncertainty is having a detrimental effect on the behaviour of the asylum seekers, some of whom have protested peacefully about the indefinite delay in their processing, and some of whom are on a hunger strike.

Sources

• ABC Radio Australia
• Listen to the Radio Australia report
• Image: The Punch