Suicidal and angry: Iraqis suffer in PNG detention camp
Syndey Morning Herald
Home is a container ... asylum seekers on Manus Island. Photo: Angela Wylie
The 'Pacific solution' is causing mayhem on PNG's Manus Island, reports Greg Roberts, the first Australian journalist to visit the detention centre
Asylum seekers sent by Australia to Manus Island in Papua New Guinea have been injured in escape attempts, have potentially fatal diseases, and have staged hunger strikes and wrecked property during protests.
One Iraqi man has reportedly tried to kill himself at the Australian-funded detention centre, built at the PNG Defence Force's Lombrum Naval Base.
Doctors at nearby Lorengau Hospital in the island's main town confirmed that at least 15 of the asylum seekers, including several young children, have malaria in a region with a high rate of the disease.
They said it was likely that at least some, if not all, had contracted the disease on the island, and not in holding camps in Indonesia before setting out for Australia.
Doctors confirmed that no medication to prevent malaria was given initially to the first batch of 216 asylum seekers sent to Manus Island after being rescued by HMAS Adelaide off Ashmore Reef last October.
The Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, who visited the centre on Sunday, has denied that asylum seekers there had contracted malaria.
An Immigration Department spokeswoman said last night that the Government's latest information was that there were "five confirmed cases of malaria among asylum seekers in Manus". She said boat people often arrived with diseases.
Other asylum seekers at the centre are suspected of having tuberculosis and typhoid fever. An x-ray machine to screen for contagious diseases arrived just last Thursday.
Another 144 asylum seekers were flown to Manus Island from Christmas Island last week. Most of those being held at the centre are Iraqi.
In what some lawyers see as a breach of human rights, the asylum seekers have been denied access to independent legal advice on the instructions of the Australian Government, according to PNG officials.
Several sources on Manus Island said that none of the first batch of asylum seekers was told that Manus Island was the destination. All were told they were going to Australia.
"It wasn't until they got here that they saw all these black faces around them and they were very, very angry," said Lucas Kuwoh, a University of PNG law student who has been appointed by PNG and Australian lawyers to make contact with the boat people.
Mr Kuwoh said he had been trying for three months without success to gain access to them.
"The fact that they are being denied access to legal advice is contravening international human rights standards in a manner which all decent people should deplore."
A PNG Foreign Affairs Department official on the island, Lawrence Bunbun, said the Australian Government had told Port Moresby it did not want the asylum seekers to have access to independent legal advice. "They thought it wasn't necessary, that everything should just proceed through the normal channels."
Two local men, Popai David and Klopil Komet, travelled by boat to the detention centre the night after the asylum seekers from HMAS Adelaide arrived.
"We saw them trying to get out, screaming that they didn't want to be there, that they were promised they were going to Australia," Mr David said. "They tried to get over the barbed wire but they got all cut up. They had blood all over them."
Mr Komet said PNG soldiers had forced the boat people back. "They had guns pointed at them, they were telling them they would shoot them if they didn't get down off the fences."
A Manus Island policeman who was sent to the camp said one man had pulled out a light bulb and put two of his fingers in the socket. "He was very distraught; the others told us he was trying to kill himself because it got too much for him."
The policeman said that several days after they arrived asylum seekers had rioted in the food hall, destroying tables and chairs and smashing windows. "They went berserk, crazy, like they were wrecking anything they could get their hands on."
In the first view of the asylum seekers by the media at the detention centre, the Herald this week saw groups of people in units segregated for single men and families behind three-metre fences topped with barbed wire. Private PNG security guards patrolled the fences, from which hung signs with messages such as "Our children going to die here" and "We refuse to live here".
One doctor said it was "some time" before medication to fend off malaria was provided to the first batch of boat people. "There was no time, there was such a big hurry to get them here."
The doctor said there were several suspected cases of tuberculosis and typhoid among the asylum seekers, and further screening was required before these could be confirmed.
The hospital at the naval base had been in a "state of total disrepair" when the boat people arrived. "We're only just now getting to the point where it is functioning. We have at times used the Lorengau Hospital facilities, but the direction is that this is a last resort."
Doctors and police said about 20 Iraqis had staged hunger strikes, and that "several ring-leaders" had been isolated.
The Federal Government has asked Port Moresby to refuse the media access to Lombrum. Mr Ruddock said during his visit that this was not to save his Government from embarrassment, but to "protect the interests of the asylum seekers and their families that could be prejudiced" by publicity.
Mr Ruddock's office said last night they were unaware of the Herald's visit and had no comment. Manus Island and Nauru are the destinations for asylum seekers trying to reach Australia by boat as part of the Howard Government's "Pacific solution".