Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "She is completely distressed about ending a pregnancy after so long," says Pamela Curr, the refugee advocate who speaks with her regularly. It is hard to imagine a more anguished predicament for any young woman, let alone someone who fled the terrorist group al-Shabaab in her war-torn homeland and has spent two years in detention on Nauru with no prospect of a new home. Back on Nauru, a desolate island on the equator with 10,000 inhabitants, Abyan says she is "very sick" as she waits and weighs her decision about termination. For one night, she left accommodation in the general population to seek the protection of the detention centre.

The trigger, she says, was "media harassment" from journalist and former Liberal Party operative Chris Kenny, the first reporter allowed on to Nauru in 18 months. On Monday, Kenny interviewed her and faithfully reported her insistence that she didn't tell anyone in Australia she didn't want an abortion. What upset her exactly is uncertain but Kenny asked who raped her, and why she hadn't told police. Fairfax Media can confirm detention centre staff were told by Abyan she was being "harassed" by Kenny and Australian immigration officials were informed. The next day, police and Kenny came to her home to ask for a statement about her sexual abuse. After the visits, the identity of Abyan is now widely known, as is her home, refugee activists says.

"She's desperately ill and she's terrified. There's no security at her accommodation. Anyone can can come up and do anything," says Curr. Abyan's fears are borne from personal experience, and that of others. There have been three reported sexual assaults of refugees outside the detention centres this year, including her own. Between September 2012 and April 2015, detention centre operative Transfield Service logged 33 sexual assault incidents , including nine judged critical or major. Although Abyan has not gone to Nauru's police, two others have. Their experience helps explains Abyan's reluctance to follow suit. The investigation of an alleged rape of a 26-year-old Somali woman known as "Najma", whose distressed phone call to police in the hours after she had been abducted and raped was recorded and obtained by the media, found there was no assault.

She was subsequently threatened by Nauru's justice minister David Adeang with being charged with making a false complaint. After being picked up by police battered and half-naked after being raped outside Nauru's detention centre, Syrian refugee "Nazanin",was left in a police van en route to the station. The police, reports ABC's Lateline, watched fireworks for 45 minutes. Nazanin was then reportedly left in an undressed state for hours while police interviewed her. Police have not rejected her complaint outright but cannot find the perpetrators. When Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull – as communications minister – described Australia's asylum seeker policy as harsh and cruel, he could not have chosen better case studies. . In the case of Abyan, she is becoming a totem of Australia's harsh offshore processing system for refugees.

As the government comes under pressure from the Greens and increasingly vocal refugee, human rights and medical activists, Abyan's experience has become embroiled in competing claims and the stock-in-trade of politics, the half truth. The fog of secrecy surrounding border protection policy means the facts surrounding Abyan's time in Australia are easily contested and hard to independently verify. Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton's first comment after Abyan's departure was "she had decided not to proceed with the termination", adding "comments from some advocates to the contrary are a fabrication." It would be hard to make a more emphatic declaration. Later, Abyan would dispute his assessment in a letter obtained by Fairfax Media and in an interview she gave Kenny.

In Senate estimates, Neil Skill, the immigration official who authorised forced exit from Australia, gave a more nuanced explanation: "I have seen advice from two medical professionals indicating that she had declined to undergo the procedure on the day and also declined the offer of a scheduled appointment in a week's time. On the back of that information, I made the determination that there is no medical procedure at this point of time and that the individual should return to Nauru." The caveat "at this time" was used repeatedly and accords with Abyan's insistence she never told medical staff in Australia she wanted to keep the baby. Dutton outlined the multiple appointments Abyan had with medical staff, including doctors. She was also given access to an interpreter. But officials would not detail the nature of the medical care. The arrival on Nauru of Kenny – a former chief of staff to Turnbull and now associate editor of the Australian – also generated rancour and competing claims, with the combative conservative battling vitriolic abuse on social media.

Curr says she was on the phone to Abyan when she heard her start screaming, allegedly after sighting the police and Kenny arriving for his second visit. Curr says the refugee was distressed and told Kenny and a photographer to "go away". Kenny denies he bullied Abyan or acted in cahoots with the police. Rather, he spotted them by chance and followed them to Abyan's house. He says she was "distressed" at first when they met but invited him into her house for the interview, with her flatmate acting as interpreter. Even after the first interview that upset Abyan, she agreed to talk to him again, and have a photo taken as long as it didn't identify her. What is not in dispute is that Abyan complained of media harassment, went to a medical clinic and was moved to the detention centre after the first encounter. Kenny reported the development himself. The journalist would not, however, comment on whether the $8000 non-refundable visa application fee demanded by Nauru was waived for him. The fee blocks many journalists from trying to get a visa, especially as media companies who have paid it have been stalled, or rejected.

Turnbull is adamant that no-one on Nauru will be resettled in Australia. The policy has stopped boats laden with asylum seekers coming to Australia, and the deaths at sea that were regular occurrences under Labor. However, there are concerns people smugglers may challenge the new Prime Minister by sending more boats to Australia. And the asylum seeker policy is being tested at home too. Some 240 asylum seekers have been returned to Australia for medical care from Nauru and Manus Island are staying here – at least for the time – after lawyers launched a High Court action to have offshore processing ruled unconstitutional. The court case and the injunction that's keep those asylum seekers in Australia appears, at least in part, behind Abyan's return to Nauru. Indeed, Dutton suggested Abyan was in Australia looking for a "migration outcome", something her lawyer George Newhouse denies. Either way, after being informed by two health workers that Abyan had declined the two abortion appointments, Neil Skill moved quickly. He worked into Wednesday evening to organise a charter jet for Nauru.

It cost an estimated $100,000 to get her out of Australia on Friday, even though there were commercial flights available two days later. The charter was necessary, say Skill, because Abyan was "a risk with regard to the non-compliance and disrupting the airline". If Abyan, 15 weeks pregnant at the time she left, was only rejecting an abortion "at this time", it is astonishing officials would take such a drastic step. They would surely know it would be likely to cause additional trauma to a woman already reeling. At the very least, it appears to be a dereliction of the duty of care of a damaged and distressed woman. The hardline treatment of Abyan will send a clear message of deterrence to would-be boat people and people smugglers. That is the point of the government's asylum seeker policy.

The rest of the world, though, is hearing a different message as foreign media such as the New York Times highlight Abyan's saga while Amnesty International gears up for a global campaign highlighting Abyan's plight. It will be a message of a vulnerable woman's harrowing story and callous treatment by the Australian government.