Australia urged to act as refugee health crisis intensifies in Papua New Guinea
- A report by an asylum seeker support group found one-fifth of the remaining refugees are ‘so unwell their lives were at imminent risk’
Many of the refugees previously detained in Papua New Guinea and left behind by the Australian government are at imminent risk of death, Australia’s leading asylum seeker support group has warned.
In a new audit report published on Friday, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) said one in five of the 47 refugees still in Papua New Guinea “were so unwell their lives were at imminent risk” and that they needed urgent medical care and immediate evacuation.
While there had been evidence of similar health concerns among detainees flagged by humanitarian groups in the past, the situation now has reached a crisis point, the report said.
“It is a testament to how far Australia has fallen that, despite more than a decade of evidence of the harms inflicted on human beings detained in offshore detention facilities, these immigration policies endure,” Nilanthy Vigneswaran, a Darwin-based infectious diseases doctor, said in the report.
“Appropriate and accessible medical care is not subject to the whims of Australia’s immigration policies – they are fundamental and undeniable human rights.”
