Papua New Guinean woman found naked and disoriented in Australian-run facility after apparently being drugged tells her story publicly for the first time

A woman who police allege may have been gang-raped inside the Australian-run detention centre on Manus Island has demanded her alleged attackers be returned to Papua New Guinea to face questioning.



Speaking out for the first time since she was found, naked and disoriented, in a shower block at the centre last month, Sarah* tells Guardian Australia that the three men accused must be called back and held to account.

“I told Transfield management … if the guys were here, this could have been solved a long time ago,” she says. “They have the answers I want to know. This would have already been fixed.

“But once you start hiding people and sending them away, what are you covering up for?”

Sarah, a Papua New Guinean local, tells the Guardian she was an employee of Transfield, the Australian company contracted by the Australian government to run the detention centre on Manus, at the time of the attack. She worked as a feedback and complaints assistant in the welfare department.

On 15 July, as Sarah recounts her story, she spent the evening drinking with work colleagues at the officers’ mess in the Lombrum army base, which houses Australia’s asylum seeker detention centre.

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Drinks there on a Wednesday are a regular feature of life at the centre. Thursday is “fly-out day”: workers at the end of their fortnight-long “lag” leave and their replacements arrive, so Wednesday night is a chance to unwind over a few South Pacific lagers.

Coming from a military family – her father is in the PNG navy, and her uncle and her cousin are soldiers based at Lombrum – the mess was familiar territory for Sarah. She was comfortable there, relaxed among family, friends and her workmates.



She had an early start the next day – 6am – so she’d arranged to stay with her cousin at his apartment on the base, and the night progressed unremarkably enough.

Sarah saw friends of her father’s for a drink, before sitting with work colleagues, along with some workers whom she recognised but whose names she didn’t know, for a couple more.

The get-together was quiet and was winding down about 1am when her uncle called last drinks. From the mess Sarah walked with friends back to the Wilson Security accommodation block, a brutal three-storey edifice clad in aluminium, set at a remove from the detention compound and ringed by a 12-foot wire fence topped with CCTV cameras. Wilson Security is the Australian company subcontracted by Transfield to run security at the detention centre.

At the outside smoking area a group of Wilson staff were still up, including some known to Sarah.

“I walked over to them, and … asked, ‘You’re still up, what are you doing?’” Sarah says. “They said they were just sitting down with … one of the guys – ‘He’s flying out tomorrow and he’s not going to come back.’”

Three Wilson guards were seated at a table. “We all sat down, there were some mashed-up tablets on the table,” Sarah says. “One of the Wilson [guards], he was shaking the little container with the pills. I said, ‘What are you doing, what’s that?’ He said, ‘It’s like alcohol, there’s no alcohol here, that’s why we’re taking this.’

“After he said that, he handed over a pill to one of the guys sitting next to me and he placed two in front of me. In my mind, I thought at the time, it was like alcohol, just as I was told. It’s just like alcohol. So I had it.”

That’s the only memory I have for the night … Even today, I don’t know what happened Sarah*

Sitting by the water on Los Negros Island – the small island next to Manus and where the detention centre is actually based – it is clear that it still pains Sarah to talk about this. “That’s the only memory I have for the night,” she says. “After that I passed out. I don’t know, I don’t know what happened. Even today, I don’t know what happened.

“The thing that I can remember next is one of the Wilson Security ladies called my name. I woke up.

“She found me in a bathroom at the Wilson accommodation. I had nothing on. She called my name and she said, ‘What happened, what are you doing here?’ and I said, ‘Where am I? Where am I?’”

“She said, ‘You’re at the Wilson’s accommodation,’ and I like, ‘My God, how did I end up here?’”

The woman covered Sarah with a blanket and the pair sat together in the room, while other staff went for help.

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Through the fug of her disorientation, Sarah saw a man who looked familiar walk past: she had seen him the night before.

“I told a security local guard lady … ‘Ask him if he knows where my things are.’ And they did ask, and he said, ‘They’re in my room.’ My clothes, everything was there. All my inner clothes, everything.

“He was like in a rush, maybe they already got this travelling or going away thing happening, so they were acting really quick. But I wasn’t switched on that they might escape or something like that.”

Sarah was taken to see an International Health and Medical Services medical officer, whom she says did not conduct any physical examination of her, only asking questions. (IHMS, the company contracted by Australia to provide medical care for aslyum seekers in detention, has declined to comment, citing patient confidentiality.)

Sarah was then taken to speak with a psychiatrist and Transfield’s operations manager before another staff member drove her home, where she was told to rest and to come back to work on Monday.

But as Sarah was being interviewed, driven home and put to bed by her aunt, the men who were with her at the end of the night gathered their possessions and were driven the short distance to Momote airfield.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Wilson Security accommodation block, where the woman was found naked and disoriented. Photograph: Ben Doherty/The Guardian

They flew out of Manus that morning, out of PNG, and out of the reach of PNG law. It’s unclear how many of the men were already booked on the late-morning flight out that day.

Sarah says she was distraught when she found out the men were gone.

She was subsequently suspended by Transfield for breaching “staff codes of conduct” and later resigned. She says she feels abandoned by the company.

“I worked hard to do a good job. But they didn’t care about me, they just wanted to protect their name.”

She reported to Papua New Guinean police she believed she had been sexually assaulted.

Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection said last month that in the immediate reports it received, there were “no allegations of a criminal nature made as a result of this incident”.

But Papua New Guinea is a conservative Christian country. Sarah, particularly to strangers and those from outside the close-knit island community, finds it hard to speak plainly about what she believes happened to her.

“It’s a possibility they did touch me,” she told the Guardian obliquely. “From how I was found, that speaks a lot to me. I am very angry.”

But the anger is not hers alone. Here on Los Negros, the disquiet runs out in concentric circles. There are few here who don’t know Sarah, no one who doesn’t know the story.

Sarah’s father’s barely spoke while the Guardian interviewed his daughter. He shook his head as he heard the story again.

“It’s had a big affect on my family, on my community,” Sarah says. “It doesn’t feel the same. It really brings, I’d say shame, to the family.”

Sarah’s wantok, the extended network of familial ties that stretches out across the island and the whole of Manus province, are similarly distressed.

“Now that they [are] gone, the whole village, Los Negros Island, people are just angry,” she says. “When they hear about the drug and all that they are angry with Transfield: ‘Why did they let them go away?’ They should have stayed.”

To Sarah’s chagrin, what happened to her is now political issue as well.

The Manus MP, Ronnie Knight, tells Guardian Australia he is “disgusted” the men were allowed to leave – “these people should have been made to stay to face these allegations” – while the governor of the province, Charlie Benjamin, says: “The people of Manus are not happy and I am not happy. As leader of the province, I should have been told about this. But I never was.

“And they just took these men out. We need to see these men brought to justice.”

PNG’s anger runs to the highest office in the land. The prime minister, Peter O’Neill, has promised to raise the matter with Australian government officials and says he supports police efforts to have the men brought back to the country.

One of the guys from that night, he Facebooked me the next day and he said, ‘Are you OK?’ Sarah

“The [police] commissioner, he is in charge of this, he must investigate who sent this particular person out of the country without him facing the law,” he says.

Even some of the men’s colleagues want them returned to the island to answer questions. “This is bullshit,” one Wilson guard tells Guardian Australia. “While they are away from here, we are all accused, we are all guilty. If they did nothing wrong, why are they hiding?”

There is anger, too, within Transfield. Another Transfield employee, an Australian who was there on the night but is not alleged to have been involved in the incident, has been allegedly been fired for failing to keep Sarah from the accommodation block, which is for expat staff only.

“Thrown under the bus,” one source says, labelling the move an effort to appease Papua New Guinean anger.

PNG police have confirmed they are investigating allegations of “attempted rape, indecent exposure and sexual assault” against the three expatriate Wilson employees.

The provincial police commander, Alex N’Drasal, has previously demanded the men be returned to the island to face questioning pending charges.

In Manus, N’Drasal tells Guardian Australia the events of the night of 15 July were “still under investigation” but he has been ordered by the police commissioner not to “disseminate any information”.

A senior police source in Port Moresby says the gag order came, ultimately, from “someone in Australia”.

The police officer, who is familiar with the facts of the case, says: “The commissioner wants these people to come back to face charges and to face trial. He is not happy that these people were just taken out of PNG, as though this country’s laws don’t matter.”

Sarah knows the names of those she believes attacked her. The PNG police have their names also.

“One of the guys from that night, he Facebooked me the next day and he said, ‘Are you OK?’” Sarah says.

Three service provider staff were … returned to Australia … with the full knowledge and concurrence of the PNG police Wilson Security

“He made it sound like funny, he made it sound like it’s something to laugh at. And he’s like, ‘I got in trouble.’ He said he got in trouble, that’s the reason why they fly him out of the country while they’re investigating. I said, ‘It’s not funny, it’s serious. What happened to me, what did you do to me?’ And he was like, ‘I didn’t do anything.’ I said, ‘Don’t lie.’

“He was like, ‘I was taking care of you.’ And I said, ‘How can you say you took care of me when I was found the way I was. That’s not taking care of me.’”

Wilson Security declined to respond to questions from Guardian Australia, pointing to a statement from Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection that “categorically rejects assertions … it was involved in a ‘cover-up’ of an alleged sexual assault on Manus Island”.

“To clarify the matter, the department was made aware immediately in mid-July of an incident involving three service provider staff and a locally engaged staff member. There were no allegations of a criminal nature made as a result of this incident. However, the alleged incident was inconsistent with expected behaviours and contrary to the service provider’s code of conduct.

“The three service provider staff were stood down and returned to Australia as part of standard procedures with the full knowledge and concurrence of the PNG police.”

PNG police have denied they were consulted about the men being removed. “That’s a total lie,” N’Drasal says.

Transfield did not respond to questions from Guardian Australia.

*Sarah’s name has been changed to protect her identity

