Thousands protested in cities across Australia on Saturday to mark five years of a policy under which asylum-seekers and migrants have been turned away and detained on remote Pacific islands.

Messages were read aloud from those still languishing in deteriorating conditions on the islands, years after being detained.

Since 2013, anyone trying to reach Australia by boat has been sent for processing to the islands of Manus, which is part of Papua New Guinea, and Nauru. In 2013, Kevin Rudd, then the prime minister of Australia, unveiled a policy that barred the migrants from being settled as refugees in Australia as part of a resettlement arrangement with Papua New Guinea.

In the years that followed, thousands were sent to offshore detention centers on the small Pacific islands as a result of the policy. Subsequent Australian administrations maintained the policy despite repeated calls from the United Nations Refugee Agency and international human rights groups, as well as Australian citizens, to end the detentions.