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Australia is to investigate reports that asylum seekers at one of its detention camps in Papua New Guinea (PNG) are being raped and tortured. Kevin Rudd, Australia’s prime minister, has said that no more boat-people will be allowed to resettle in Australia and unauthorised arrivals will be sent to camps in PNG, according to a new agreement between the two countries.
Rudd said yesterday that the sinking of a refugee boat off the coast of West Java, Indonesia, on Tuesday evening justified his new offshore-processing policy, denounced by human rights groups.
Officials said yesterday that at least nine people, including children had died, and that 189 other suspected asylum seekers had been rescued. The search for survivors is continuing.
“This . . . sends a very clear message to people smugglers to stop sending people by boat to Australia,” Rudd told a news conference in Melbourne.
A former senior official at the Manus Island processing centre in PNG has said that people have been raped and tortured at the facility.
Tony Burke, Australian Immigration Minister, described the claims of Rod St George, the former head of occupational health and safety at the centre, as “horrific” and promised to fly to Manus Island this week to investigate. He said that any troublemakers would be removed from the camp.
Graeme McGregor, refugee campaign co-ordinator for Amnesty International Australia, said that it was vital that the government immediately took steps to support the complainants of rape and torture at the camp, and for those accused to be arrested and charged “in a fair court of law”.
“There needs to be a full investigation into how this matter was handled in the camp,” McGregor said.
St George told Australia’s SBS television that self-harm and attempted suicides occurred on an almost daily basis and that weapons were being accumulated in readiness for a break-out attempt.
The former prison guard quit his job after being disgusted by what he saw at the facility, where he said up to half a dozen young men were assaulted and raped by fellow inmates. Others were beaten and forced to sew their lips together to protest over conditions, he said Graeme McGregor, refugee campaign co-ordinator for Amnesty International Australia.
St George said the men who were sexually assaulted were sent back to the same tents as the people who raped them.
“There was nothing that could be done for these young men who were considered vulnerable, which in many cases is just a euphemism for men who are being raped,” he said. – AP
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