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Australia’s absolute refusal to resettle migrants who approach the country by boat sets it apart worldwide, and debate over that policy flared yet again this week as the government tried to shutter its Manus Island detention center even as more than 600 asylum seekers refused to relocate.

The men, refugees from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and several other countries, said they had no food, no electricity and barely any water, but because they feared they would be attacked anywhere else on the island, they plan to hold out as long as they can.

“If we have to move it will be against our will,” Imran Mohmammad, 23, a Rohingya refugee from Myanmar, told me in an interview.