On 14 April shots were fired at and around the Manus Island detention centre.

An armed mob, including members of the Papua New Guinea defence forces, tried to storm the centre, causing detainees and staff to hide or flee.

The events that led to the violence have been hotly disputed, with accounts by the local police chief and the Australian immigration minister, Peter Dutton, directly contradicting each other.

Here is how the controversy unfolded:

Friday 14 April

On Good Friday at around 6.30pm a large group of local men, including some personnel from the naval base, attempt to break into the Manus Island detention centre to attack refugees and asylum seekers. Live rounds are fired into the compounds of the detention centre, as refugees and asylum seekers cower inside.

Tuesday 18 April

The regional police commander on Manus, David Yapu, blames the “nasty” incident on drunken PNG defence force personnel.

The PNG defence force said the incident was triggered by an altercation on a football field when asylum seekers refused to leave the ground as directed, and escalated after an officer was assaulted. Detainees denied the claim.

Yapu said the soldiers engaged in “unethical and unacceptable behaviour”, shooting at the centre and assaulting staff and asylum seekers in retaliation for the alleged assault.

Thursday 20 April

Peter Dutton comments on the incident for the first time, telling Sky News locals had been “quite angry” that three asylum seekers were seen leading a five-year old boy towards the detention centre.

“I think there was concern about why the boy was being led, or for what purpose he was being led, away back into the regional processing centre,” Dutton said.

“I think it’s fair to say that the mood had elevated quite quickly. I think some of the local residents were quite angry about this particular incident and another alleged sexual assault.”

Dutton’s account, inconsistent with the PNG police’s version, is immediately contradicted by Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian journalist and Kurdish refugee held on Manus, who essentially corroborates Yapu’s statement that the shooting was sparked after a fight when naval personnel asked a group of refugees to leave the football field.

Friday 21 April

Yapu explicitly contradicts Dutton’s account, saying his comments on the boy referred to a “total separate incident altogether”.

Yapu says the young boy had gone to the centre to ask for food about two weeks earlier, but he was not led there and he was 10, not five. The boy’s parents had not made a complaint, and police were not investigating any link between his visit and the shooting.



Detainees say they had told the boy to stay at the doorway while they gathered some food. They call on Dutton to release CCTV footage to confirm their account.

The Greens immigration spokesman, Nick McKim, says Dutton has been caught telling an “outrageous lie” and should either “resign or be sacked”.

Sunday 23 April

Dutton refuses to back down from his account in an interview on the ABC’s Insiders, saying the account was “true” and suggesting he had different advice to Yapu.

Asked if he accepted he had got any element of the story wrong, the minister replied: “No, I do not.”

Dutton continues to insist the incident involving the child, and a separate sexual assault, contributed to elevating the “mood” on Manus Island before the violence.

“I have that on very good authority on the island,” he says. “The parents of the boy involved in the incident might have a different view to the one that you have read off tweets.”

Dutton says he is in possession of advice “that you don’t [have], so why don’t we let the police investigation run its course and allow them some independent analysis”.

“There are facts that I have that you don’t ... I can give you the facts in relation to it, or you can take the Twitter version.”

Interviewer Barrie Cassidy ask directly: “The police are investigating the incident around the five-year-old boy?”

Dutton: “Yes they are.”

Labor’s immigration spokesman, Shayne Neumann, demands Dutton apologise for his “irresponsible and outrageous” commentary.

Monday 24 April

Former Manus Island MP Ronny Knight joins those who contradicted Dutton by saying the incident with the boy had nothing to do with the mob attack.

“[Dutton’s] comment that he knows more than we do is ridiculous,” Knight tells ABC Radio National. “I’m on the ground, I’m the MP from here. If he knows more than I do then he must have a really good intelligence organisation and it must be Australian, not PNG.”

Knight refers to himself as an MP and is introduced as such by the presenter, Fran Kelly, but a court last week reportedly upheld a 2015 decision dismissing him from office after he was found guilty of misappropriating funds.

A report in Fairfax Media, since amended, quoted Knight’s comments on the ABC and also referred to him as an MP. A later report said Knight was disqualified just a day before writs for the PNG election were issued, effectively rendering all MPs out of office until polling day. Knight will recontest the seat and again appeal against the finding.

Dutton demands an apology from the media for its coverage, telling Sky News the ABC had “lost the plot”.

“What I said is factual, I stand by it 100%, and I’m not going to be cowed into a different position when I know what I said to be the truth.

“I’ll stand by those comments and I expect the ABC and Fairfax and others to be making an apology in the next 24 hours or so given the revelations that have been released tonight in relation to their discredited witness.”

Dutton says “the fact remains” that a number of men at the detention centre “were involved in leading a young boy into the detention centre and that matter is being investigated”.

The immigration minister challenges the ABC, Fairfax, the Guardian “or some of these fringe dwellers out in the internet” to put a different view on the table, if they have one.

“I’ve provided the facts as they’ve been advised to me by my department and those people with knowledge of what’s happened on the ground, and I’m not changing my position, my version, one bit, because the advice that I’ve got I’ve reconfirmed again today,” Dutton says.

Tuesday 25 April

Yapu tells Guardian Australia the police are not investigating the allegation about the boy because there has been no complaint. He also says no one from Dutton’s office has contacted him.

“Nobody has rung me to get confirmation or clarification on that issue.”

He says Dutton’s comments are adding to community tension and “it’s making it more dangerous”.

Later on Sky News Dutton is pressed to explain inconsistencies between his version of events and Yapu’s. “I receive confidential briefings, I receive classified information from the commissioner of the Australian Border Force and the [immigration] department, and I am not going to release that information publicly. There is an investigation under way.”

Wednesday 26 April

Conservative commentator Andrew Bolt says on Sky News he has been briefed on the CCTV footage (without making clear whether he has seen it), made inquiries on the incident, and talked to border force boss Roman Quaedvlieg. Bolt acknowledges that Dutton “did speak too loosely” and “could have been clearer”. But Bolt accuses Dutton’s critics of ignoring tensions between detainees and locals.

Thursday 27 April

The Guardian reveals that three refugees who gave the child fruit inside the Manus detention centre have lodged a formal complaint with the Australian Border Force over “false allegations” by Dutton, along with a plea to release the CCTV footage. “All of these incidents is recorded by your CCTV cameras. We are requesting for the immediate release of the footage of this incident. We didn’t do any wrong except helping a poor boy. We need investigation ASAP.”

