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Behind the wire in Australia’s ‘Pacific Gulag’
YAREN, Nauru, Sept 11, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A cluster of prefabricated huts
pokes out of Nauru’s sweltering rocky landscape to reveal refugee settlement
camp number five, a place defined by desperation and rarely visited by
outsiders.
Although access to the weed-infested camp is severely restricted, with the
Nauru government seeking to prevent journalists from visiting the area, AFP
recently managed to enter and speak with detainees.
Inhabitants are there against their will, the subjects of a controversial
deal between this island’s government and authorities in Canberra keen to
avoid boat people setting foot on Australian shores.
Most are asylum-seekers who tried to reach Australia by sea, but were
detained and processed in compounds run by the Nauru government and paid for
by Canberra under its hardline immigration policy.
A swastika spray-painted on a large water tank alongside initials “ABF”
make clear the inhabitants’ views on the Australian Border Force, which helps
oversee them.
Many are willing to speak only on condition of anonymity, but they describe
existence on this remote speck of land in the South Pacific as devoid of
hope, filled with desperation and of families living with the unbearable
cloud of suicide attempts.
A refugee from Iran — who asked not to be named — worries about himself,
but above all about his children.
His 12-year-old daughter once doused herself in petrol and threatened to
set herself alight, after struggling to cope with spending half a decade and
almost half her life on Nauru.
“She took the lighter, she was screaming ‘Leave me alone! Leave me alone! I
want to kill myself, I want to die’,” he said.
He managed to wrest the lighter from her hands, but the despair that drove
the girl to contemplate suicide still hangs over the lives of this family of
four.
Her 13-year-old brother tells AFP in a monotone: “I have no school, I have
no future, I have no life.”
MORE/MR/ 1123 hrs
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Somali asylum-seeker Khadar Hrisi watches over his depressed wife like a
hawk, afraid even to go to sleep because of her repeated suicide attempts,
including one just a few days earlier.
He took her to the nearest hospital, which is funded by Australia, but they
received little help.
“Last night, they called the police and they kicked us (out of)… the
hospital,” he says.
Refugees say medical services are limited and habitually overwhelmed
because so many inhabitants suffer from psychological illnesses.
Nauru’s roughly 900 detainees, including 100 children, often wait years to
find out if they have been deemed genuine refugees.
Even if they are, Australia still refuses to take them, leaving them
stranded in the settlement camps unable to leave the 21 square kilometre
(eight square mile) island they have come to regard as an open-air prison.
– ‘Stolen years’ –
A Refugee Council of Australia report released last week to coincide with
the Pacific Islands Forum summit on Nauru said many detainees’ mental health
was buckling because they could see no end to their plight.
“Those who have seen this suffering say it is worse than anything they have
seen, including in war zones… people are broken,” the report said.
Rights activists say detainees endure harsh conditions including
substandard housing in scorching heat, with reports also detailing
allegations of physical and sexual abuse.
Reporters Without Borders in August also accused the Australian government
of failing to defend journalistic freedoms in relation to the camp, which it
described as a “Pacific Gulag” and “Australia’s Guantanamo”.
However, Canberra denies mistreatment and says offshore processing is
needed to stop deaths occurring when people-smugglers cram asylum-seekers
into rickety boats for the treacherous voyage to try to reach Australia.
Nauru President Baron Waqa has dismissed the mental health fears and says
the refugees can move freely around the island.
“They’re provided all the services that are available to the Nauruans and
we live together very happily,” he told reporters.
But detainees say their relations with Nauruans are deteriorating and claim
that they have been the target of violence and burglary at the hands of
locals.
The camp is an economic lifeline for Nauru, which has a population of
11,000 and scant natural resources.
However, some Nauruans say they have yet to see any benefits from the
Australian-bankrolled camps, with one young man telling AFP: “We do not know
where this money goes”.
Many Nauruans live in dire conditions themselves and do not understand why
the detainees are complaining.
For their part, the refugees say they would be ready to move anywhere, as
long as it meant their search for a home was finally over.
“The Australian government has stolen five years of our life,” said the
Iranian father whose daughter attempted suicide and whose son spends his days
in depressed resignation.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1123 hrs