Sydney: Papua New Guinea police wielding metal rods cleared the final 320 holdouts from a shuttered Australian refugee camp on Friday, ending a 24-day standoff that put a global spotlight on Canberra’s tough policy on asylum-seekers. Videos and photos posted by the detainees showed police moving through the camp on Manus Island, swinging long metal batons and pushing men towards buses bound for PNG-run centres elsewhere on the island.
Pictures showed men with some scrapes and cuts they said came from being hit and dragged by police.
Several hours later, PNG and Australian officials confirmed the camp on a former PNG naval base had been emptied as ordered by the PNG Supreme Court, which said last year that the Canberra-run detention centre violated the country’s constitution.
“It’s empty. The military have taken back their base,” PNG police spokesman Dominic Kakas said.
Australia’s Immigration Minister Peter Dutton welcomed the news, and accused refugees and their advocates of making “inaccurate and exaggerated claims of violence and injuries” during the police operation.
Dutton told reporters in Brisbane he was aware of three people with minor injuries, but the UN refugee agency UNHCR said its staff had received reports that several men were “seriously injured”.
Canberra set up the Manus camp and a similar complex on the Pacific island nation of Nauru under a policy of “offshore detention” designed to choke off the flow of migrants trying to reach Australia by boat. The camps were described as “processing centres” where authorities would determine the legal status of detainees and then arrange resettlement for verified refugees. — AFP
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