"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

With very few of the refugees willing to be resettled in Papua New Guinea, it is unclear where the refugees and asylum seekers will go after Manus closes.

Australia's immigration minister Peter Dutton has made it clear that those on Manus will never be resettled in Australia.

"While people smugglers continue to target Australia, the Coalition Government has ensured no boats have made it here in the past two years and more. This effort to combat people smugglers must and does continue," Dutton says.

Some in Papua New Guinea are unhappy with the prospect of hundreds of asylum seekers being resettled into their country and there have been reports of asylum seekers being attacked by locals.

The prime minster of Papua New Guinea Peter O'Neill said a series of options are being advanced. It was important that the process is not rushed, but carried out in a careful manner, as they consider options, he said

Papua New Guinea's supreme court ruled in April that holding people against their will on Manus is illegal. The country's top judge Sir Salamo Injia last month expressed frustration that Papua New Guinea and Australia's governments were not complying with the ruling by closing the centre.

There are more than 900 men held on Manus, who were forcibly transferred there by Australia since 2013 after fleeing from countries such as Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Source

• radionz.co.nz
• channelnewsasia.com
• Image: stuff.co.nz

Australia does not allow journalists to visit the centres but the BBC's Jon Donnison travelled undercover to Papua New Guinea to reach the camp on Manus island.

He reported seeing "asylum seekers, their faces pressed against the fences, some of whom have been stuck in Manus for almost two years." Watch Video

In 2013, under the Labor government of Kevin Rudd, Australia did a deal with PNG, agreeing to pay around AU$400m (US$300m; £200m) in aid if it agreed not only to house the detention centre but also to resettle refugees.

On Manus Island reaction to Australia's policies is mixed.

Papua New Guinea is a poor country.

On the one hand the detention centre has provided hundreds of jobs for local people who work as security guards.

But in terms of the AU$400m of aid promised for Papua New Guinea as part of the deal, many local people say they've seen little of that money.

"It is like boomerang aid," says Nahau Rooney, a community leader on Manus.

"They bring the money but Manus is getting maybe 1%, maybe 10%. But most of the major contracts are going to Australian companies."

Source

• bbc.com
• bbc.com
• Image: bbc.com

Most are from troubled Middle East and Asian countries.

The highest number is from Iran (533), followed by Afghanistan (134), Pakistan (104), Iraq (94).

There are also 90 Sudanese, 47 Somalis and a handful of North-Africans. There are 74 Bangladeshi, 69 people coming from Myanmar, 37 Lebanese, 27 from Sri Lanka, 5 from Syria.

Almost 40 people are stateless.

The General Secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, Fr Victor Roche recently visited the Manus detention centre as an observer for the Catholic Church to find out if there was any violation of human rights in the refugee camp.

Eleven detainees were brought into the court room over a couple of days. They testified that they were forcefully taken to Manus from the remote Australian Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean and were told that they would never be allowed to settle in Australia.

The detainees complained about the harsh conditions in the camp: one mentioned bread with worms; others cramped rooms, lack of privacy, deprivation of liberty and uncertainty about the future. They said that they left Iraq, Somalia or Afghanistan, because of threats to their life.

They would like to be resettled in Australia or in a country that can guaranty their safety.

From the camp they can communicate by phone or via internet with their families; but some are frightened by security personnel at the camp.

Source

• Catholic Reporter PNG
• Image: The Guardian

Alex Pagliaro was one of two researchers who last week visited the camp where 387 male asylum seekers are crammed into leaky tents in a very hot environment.
She says it is a recipe for disaster.

Nauru's foreign minister Dr. Kieren Keke, who is a medical doctor, says he appreciates the advice of Amnesty International inspectors, and says he will move quickly to make changes.

Keke says construction will soon start on permanent accommodation, but he will seek to make improvements in the meantime.

"Some of the things are simple and relate to communication, information being provided to asylum seekers," he said.

"As well as some of the simple things, the number of toilets and showers, the lack of shade in some areas, the inadequate number of computers for communication - and those kinds of things which I think can be addressed relatively quickly."

"The current facilities that are available are certainly not what either the Nauru government or the Australian Government wants and are finding acceptable as a permanent solution," he said.

"Unfortunately, and quite frustratingly for myself and the Nauru government, there's been delays caused largely through negotiations on revised terms of the land lease for the land that the site is on."
Source

• Radio New Zealand International
• Island Business
• Image: The Age

"We are against the offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea," Father Roche said.

The chief executive officer of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne, Kon Karapanagiotidis, said he was shocked by the panel's recommendations.

"We are deeply disappointed," he said.

"I think it's a recommendation that basically just rubber stamps what (Prime Minister Julia) Gillard has been arguing for. And it just shows you the lack of integrity, and the lack of genuine process because what this panel is putting forward is not what the community and the public were making submissions on."

A prominent Papua New Guinea politician says he will take legal action to stop Manus Island detention centre being reopened to house asylum seekers.

National Capital District (NCD) Governor Powes Parkop, a member of Prime Minister Peter O'Neill's coalition government, says a detention centre contradicts PNG's law and culture.

"You cannot detain people here in PNG - even if they are aliens from outer space - we cannot detain them indefinitely," Parkop says.

Source

• Radio Australia
• PINA
• Image: ABC