Hundreds of refugees being held at a remote Papua New Guinea detention camp will be moved by October despite uncertainty over a resettlement deal with the United States, Australia’s immigration minister said Thursday. Canberra sends asylum-seekers who try to enter the country by boat to camps on Nauru and PNG’s Manus Island, with those found … Read more
An Afghan man who reportedly made millions of dollars smuggling asylum-seekers to Australia by boat has been extradited from Indonesia and charged with 10 offences, Australian police said Friday. Ahmad Zia Alizadah, who was flown from Jakarta to Perth on Thursday, is accused of charging 263 asylum-seekers between US$4,000 to US$10,000 each for the perilous … Read more
Detainees at a controversial Australian asylum-seeker camp in Papua New Guinea won Aus$70 million ($53 million) in compensation on Wednesday after alleging they suffered physical and psychological harm. The settlement, to be shared by 1,905 people held on Manus Island since 2012, averted a public trial against the government and security providers Transfield and G4S. … Read more
Drunk soldiers “went on a rampage” and fired shots in the air at an Australian asylum-seeker camp in Papua New Guinea, police said on Sunday, in the latest violence to rock the scandal-hit facility. PNG police announced an investigation into the unrest at the Manus Island facility, an offshore processing centre reopened in 2012 to … Read more
Asylum-seekers sent by Australia to a Papua New Guinea camp will be resettled there if they are not offered a place in the United States, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said Sunday. Canberra sends asylum-seekers who try to enter the country to offshore processing centres in PNG’s Manus Island and Nauru, blocking them from resettling in … Read more
A phone call between US President Donald Trump and Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull has called into question a refugee resettlement deal. The Washington Post reported Mr Trump called the conversation “the worst by far” of his calls with world leaders that day, and cut it short. Mr Trump later tweeted that he would “study this … Read more
Australia’s prime minister said on Monday resettlement to the US of many of the 1,200 asylum seekers held in prisons on Papua New Guinea and the Pacific island of Nauru would begin after president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration in January. Whether Trump honours the deal Australia reached with the outgoing Obama administration, and announced earlier this … Read more