Profiles of Misery on Manus Island

Refugees and asylum seekers protest against Australia’s offshore processing policy at a detention center on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea.
Refugees and asylum seekers protest against Australia’s offshore processing policy at a detention center on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. © 2017 Private
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Gamal (not his real name), 34, is a refugee from Pakistan who has been held on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea for four years under Australia’s offshore processing policy. He misses his 6-year-old twin sons and 4-year-old son, whom he has never met. He has painful lesions on his head but says he has not received proper medical treatment. “It is very painful,” he says.  “I cannot shower, I have to sleep on my side. I want to see a skin specialist.” © 2017 Human Rights Watch
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Marwan (not his real name), 33, is a Sudanese refugee who has been held on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea for four years under Australia’s offshore processing policy. He is a refugee from Darfur, Sudan. After government forces attacked his village, Marwan and his family spent 10 years in a displaced persons camp. He fled Sudan for safety in Australia but was sent to Manus Island, Papua New Guinea where he has been held since 2013. In 2015, his father told him that his wife had been shot and killed, but he still doesn’t know the circumstances. His daughter Esra, 5, and son Asma, 3, who he has never met, are in a refugee camp with his mother. “I want to try and call my family, but I haven’t been in contact with them for a month. I don’t know what’s wrong.” © 2017 Human Rights Watch
Waheed (not his real name) is a 24-year-old Afghan refugee who has been held on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea for four years under Australia’s offshore processing policy.
Waheed (not his real name), 24, is a refugee from Afghanistan who has been held on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea for four years under Australia’s offshore processing policy. He fled Afghanistan in the late 1990s with his family and lived in Pakistan for 10 years. As a refugee in Pakistan with no official ID, he was unable to take his final high school exams and had to return to Afghanistan. The Taliban kidnapped his father and he fled Afghanistan once more, this time on his own. “I just want to go to a safe place." Waheed loves to cook, and hopes that one day he can open his own Afghan café.  © 2017 Private
Shan (not his real name) is a 27-year-old Sri Lankan refugee who has been held on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea for four years under Australia’s offshore processing policy
Shan (not his real name) is a 27-year-old Sri Lankan refugee who has been held on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea for four years. Many refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island have mental health conditions, exacerbated by their continued detention and exposure to violence. “I have seen people so traumatized, they have to do something,” Shan says. “They get the blade and cut, I have seen people drink shampoo. I have seen people when they stitched their mouth. When I see that, I was very mentally upset, it gave me nightmares. But the worst thing that affects me is the death of other refugees.”  In 2017, two refugees reportedly committed suicide on Manus. Both had mental health conditions.  © 2017 Human Rights Watch
A local man on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island slashed Masoud’s (not his real name) wrist with a knife in July 2017. Masoud has been held in Papua New Guinea for four years under Australia’s offshore processing policy.
Masoud (not his real name) is a 31-year-old Iranian refugee who has spent four years living on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea under Australia’s offshore processing policies. In July, Masoud was attacked by a group of intoxicated local men. He told Human Rights Watch: “One man said, ‘Give everything to us.’ He had a kitchen knife. Some of them had machetes. He held the knife to my neck. I took my bag off and put it on the ground. … “Don’t kill me, please. We are friends.” The man “pulled me by the hand, he was dragging me into bushes… I tried to take my arm away and then he slashed the knife across my wrist… There was lots of bleeding. My tendon was cut.”  © 2017 Human Rights Watch
Jahim (not his real name) has spent more than four years on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island under Australia’s offshore processing policy. An assailant cut Jahim across his elbow and robbed him of his phone in June 2017.
Jahim (not his real name), 35, has spent more than four years on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island under Australia’s offshore processing policies. One June morning, Jahim and a friend went into town to buy a chicken. A group of local men cornered them and demanded their phones and other belongings. When Jahim resisted a man put a knife to his throat: "I was too late in handing over the phone. It's the only way to contact my family. Then he cut me." The staff at the local hospital said they could not treat him, and only offered him some pain relief. Eventually authorities sent Jahim by plane to the hospital in Port Moresby, the capital, for surgery.  © 2017 Human Rights Watch
Imran, a 23-year-old ethnic Rohingya refugee from Burma has spent four years on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island under Australia’s offshore processing policy.
Imran is a 23-year-old ethnic Rohingya refugee from Burma. He has spent four years on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island under Australia’s offshore processing policies. He says: “We Rohingya are born with fear and live in fear throughout of our lives. We are stateless. We don’t have citizenship, we are vulnerable in so many ways. I tried to come to Australia because I didn’t want to be stateless, I wanted to belong to a country. We can survive without food, without a roof over my head. The hardest thing here is not knowing anything about our future and being stuck in limbo. Now, we just want our freedom. If they don’t want us in Australia, we don’t want to be in Australia. All we want is to be free in a safe country.”  © 2017 Human Rights Watch
Badih (not his real name) is a 35-year-old Afghan refugee who has been held in Papua New Guinea for four years under Australia’s offshore processing policy.
Badih (not his real name), 35, is an ethnic Hazara refugee from Afghanistan held on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea for four years under Australia’s offshore processing policy. He fled Afghanistan after being arrested and tortured by the Taliban. Badih has post-traumatic stress disorder. Last year, he spent four months in a cell in an isolation unit at the regional processing center on Manus Island. “To leave the room, I had to push a button and wait for someone to come and unlock the door, even to use the bathroom,” he said. “Sometimes when I pushed the button they didn’t come. I didn’t know if I was alive or dead.”  © 2017 Human Rights Watch
Haider, a Bangladeshi refugee, 35, has spent more than four years on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island under Australia’s offshore processing policy.
Haider is a 35-year-old refugee from Bangladesh who has been on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island for more than four years under Australia’s offshore processing policy. He moved from the regional processing center to the transit center closer to Lorengau town more than two years ago. “We are not happy living here like this,” he says. “I was thinking we come to transit center to get a little bit of freedom. But this is not freedom. I am so very tired here. I never wanted to go to Papua New Guinea. I came by boat to Australia because I needed safety and security. It’s not safe for us here.” © 2017 Human Rights Watch
Ben is a 25-year-old Iranian refugee who has been held in Papua New Guinea for four years under Australia’s offshore processing policy.
Ben is a 25-year-old refugee from Iran who has been held in Papua New Guinea for four years under Australia’s offshore processing policy. He hopes that one day he will be able to study for a bachelor’s degree and pursue a career in disability care. “I want to help,” Ben says. “I am optimistic for the future, there is always hope at the end of darkness. I believe I will have a good life one day.” © 2017 Human Rights Watch

Since 2013, Australia has sent asylum seekers who try to reach the country by boat to cramped and dirty offshore processing centers in PNG and Nauru. Human Rights Watch found that groups of local young men have frequently assaulted and robbed refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island.

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Refugees and asylum seekers protest against Australia’s offshore processing policy at a detention center on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea.

October 26, 2017

Commentary
After Years in Dangerous Limbo the Men on Manus Must be Brought to Safety
Georgie Bright
Australia Associate Director
Published in: The Guardian