Refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island have been told they will be separated – forcibly if necessary – in detention, before being resettled elsewhere in Papua New Guinea or deported from the country.



At a meeting in the Manus Island detention centre on Tuesday morning, the 900 men held there were told they would be moved within a week. Extra security has reportedly been flown to the island to assist.

Those in detention who have been given “positive” refugee status determinations would be moved into Delta and Oscar compounds, those who have been given “negative” assessments would go to Mike and Foxtrot.

According to one source in the centre, the men were told the processing of refugee claims would end on 31 March, and active reviews on 1 June.

Guardian Australia understands at least 60 men have refused to present their refugee claims to PNG authorities – asking instead to be handed over to the UN: they will be housed with the “negative” assessed.

I saw a young Sri Lankan guy, he was shaking violently. He is about 21 or 22 Behrouz Boochani, asylum seeker

A PNG immigration official told those detained that the camp population would begin to be separated on 6 April and officials would “take action” if anyone resisted.

Those with positive assessments who moved willingly would later be given additional “credit points”, redeemable for extra food or cigarettes, while those who refused would be deducted points, and forcibly moved.

Refugees and asylum seekers in detention have told the Guardian they fear being moved, either to new compounds or into the PNG community. “The people are discussing this in detention,” said an Iranian asylum seeker, Behrouz Boochani.

“Those people with ‘negative’ are in a really scary situation, especially Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi people becasue they can deport them more easily. I saw a young Sri Lankan guy, he was shaking violently. He is about 21 or 22.”

Boochani said many in the detention were saying they would refuse to move: “They have decided to resist.”

He added: “The people here think that the Australian government put them under torture for three years, processed them over a long time and finally will deport them. It is unacceptable that Australia makes an advertisement with people here … Australia has violated people’s rights and used their bodies to send a message of inhumanity and cruelty around the world.”

Another asylum seeker in Manus told Guardian Australia all the detainees had been told if they did not accept either resettlement in PNG or voluntary repatriation they would be forcibly deported. “The message was clear enough to all of us, refugees or not – they want to put more pressure on us to leave the centre although there is no safety in PNG and this resettlement seems forcible not optional,” he said.

“Also they brought extra security from Australia to do the moving. We don’t know how many of them but according to the rumours hundreds of them are already here on Manus.”

Guardian Australia has sought comment from the PNG immigration department.

After more than three years of the second iteration of offshore processing on Manus, fewer than 20 refugees have been resettled in PNG and those initial resettlements have been intensely problematic.

One Iranian refugee, now 20 but who was erroneously sent to the men-only Manus detention centre as a 17-year-old child, was left homeless and sleeping on the streets of Lae after after a disagreement at his shared accommodation.

Loghman Sawari told authorities he wanted to go back to detention on Manus but was refused. He told the Guardian: “Here, I am more frightened. Lae is very dangerous. How can I live here? It is a very bad life. I worry about my future. I cannot go back. I cannot stay here. What will happen?”

Sawari has since been rehoused elsewhere in Lae by the immigration department.

In Canberra this month PNG’s prime minister, Peter O’Neill, said his country could not resettle all of the men on Manus Island. “Who is going to pay for it?,” he asked at the National Press Club. “Certainly the PNG government does not have the resources to resettle the refugees. We are also reassessing the numbers who are supposed to be resettled.”

He said the detention centre was a “problem” that had “done a lot more damage than probably anything else”.

Data released this month found enormous discrepancies in refugee assessments between Manus Island and Australia’s other offshore processing centre on Nauru.

About 58% of determinations made by PNG authorities granted refugee status, compared with 85% by the Nauruans, which human rights advocates said suggested PNG was neither fair nor accurate.

Efforts to deport asylum seekers have also been beset. Two Iranian asylum seekers who agreed to be returned home after years in detention have been stuck in Port Moresby for seven months because Tehran is refusing to accept them.

But beyond the difficulties of resettling even small numbers of refugees, the entire offshore processing regime in PNG faces serious legal challenge, with two challenges afoot in the supreme court.



The former PNG opposition leader Belden Namah launched a supreme court challenge in 2014 but that has case has stalled inside PNG’s at-times byzantine court system. Australia is funding PNG’s defence.

The Port Moresby lawyer Ben Lomai is leading the other case, which is moving more swiftly towards a conclusion.

Lomai argues the Australian-run detention regime is in breach of the PNG constitution, which guarantees “liberty of the person”, “right to freedom of movement” and “freedom from inhuman treatment”, as well as the right to access PNG courts and a lawyer.

He argues that asylum seekers have been denied these fundamental rights and that the state is required to release the men back to their first port of entry, Australia. He will argue that PNG is also liable to pay compensation to them.

Those court challenges could see the entire offshore processing regime in PNG ruled unconstitutional and ordered shut down. Detainees suspected Tuesday’s announcement was in anticipation of a possible successful challenge.