The Manus Island detention centre is on high alert after a botched attempt to deport two asylum seekers on Thursday morning.

Between 4am and 5am, up to 10 Papua New Guinea police, accompanied by Wilson Security guards, attempted to take two Nepalese asylum seekers for forced deportation. One was taken for deportation, the other escaped and is in hiding.

Both the men have been given “negative” assessments by PNG’s immigration authority, meaning they did not meet the threshold of a “well-founded fear of persecution’ required for refugee status.

Nepalese asylum seekers held on Manus Island have reportedly come under significant pressure to return to their homeland voluntary. Some have reportedly been offered up to $20,000 to go back.

Five voluntarily returned last week. It is understood about 12 Nepalis remain in the detention centre. Most have been there more than three years.

The PNG government announced this week it was finalising travel documents for deportation of the first 60 of 168 people in the centre found not to be refugees.

PNG acting chief migration officer, Solomon Kantha, said it was a step in the process of closing the centre, as ordered by the PNG supreme court last year, the Post Courier reported on Monday.

“They will not be resettled in PNG. Voluntary departure is encouraged and supported with an assisted voluntary return program administered by the International Organisation for Migration,” said Kantha.

“Non-refugees who do not elect to depart voluntarily will have their departure enforced, consistent with PNG domestic legislation and our international obligations,” he said.

Kantha said the forced removal of the 60 people would begin in the next few weeks, “continuing on a regular basis” for the others as documents were organised.

About half of the 168 male detainees who have been denied refugee status are from Iran, a country that refuses to accept the forced return of its citizens.

Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian refugee and journalist on Manus Island, said: “This morning at 4am, PNG police and immigration attacked Mike compound and woke up two Nepali guys to deport. They took one of them while he was crying and the other one escaped and now is lost.



“We don’t know where they are now. The Nepalese asylum seekers were under a lot of pressure for a long time.”

Boochani said the entire detention centre – currently holding more than 800 men across four compounds – was nervous about future forced deportations.

Immigration officials returned to the compounds on Thursday morning to hand down further negative assessments.

“People with negative status are in shock and they are trying to know what exactly will happen. The prison is in shock. It is too much scary for them.”

The men’s lawyer, Ben Lomai, said the deportations should be halted until major issues with the assessment process had been addressed.

“It’s a concern that some of them, not all of them but some of them or even a few of them may not have been assessed properly,” he told the ABC.

Greens senator Nick McKim accused the PNG authorities of having “trashed the human rights of detainees who remain Australia’s moral and legal responsibility in the context of international law”.

McKim told the Senate on Thursday morning the deportations and alleged threats by private guards “that they would be back to take them out later” was further inflaming tensions at the centre.

“We do not want to see violence in these centres but I do have to say tensions are running very hot in the Lobrum centre,” he said.

The attorney general, George Brandis, said the men identified for deportation were not refugees and their rights were not being violated.

“I am advised that every single individual subject to these removal proceedings is a person whose claim to refugee status has been processed and rejected,” said Brandis.

“The country to which they make that claim has every right under international law to return them to their country of origin.”

The Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection has been contacted for comment.