The police commander on Manus, David Yapu, told the New Zealand news outlet Radio NZ that minor confrontations between the protesters and police officers had occurred in recent days.

“There was tension. We decided to withdraw,” Mr. Yapu said, saying his officers pulled back from the compound where the protest happened. “But our men are still there just to assist, to move the refugees from the Foxtrot compound.”

Foxtrot is part of the original facility, which this spring the Australian government announced it would shut down after it was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea. The migrants still living there were to be moved closer to the island’s main town, Lorengau, by the end of October.

Under Australia’s offshore detention program, asylum seekers intercepted at sea were to be housed at detention centers on Manus and on Nauru, an independent island nation to the east. The program and the conditions at the centers have been widely criticized by human rights groups and the United Nations.

In April 2016, the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea ruled that the country’s detention of people who were seeking asylum in Australia was illegal. Four months later, both governments said the detention center would be shuttered, but they did not say when or what would be done with the people being held there.

Most of the men on Manus Island have been formally recognized as refugees, but Australia refuses to allow them to be resettled.