600 refugees are terrified to leave Australia's island detention center

SYDNEY, Australia — A standoff at Australia’s offshore detention center on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea is entering its third day, with some 600 refugees and asylum seekers barricaded inside. The men have been without water, food, or power since Tuesday — when the Australian Government cut off supplies in an attempt to force them out.

“Everywhere in Manus prison camp is dark. There is no power here,” detained Kurdish journalist Behrouz Bouchani tweeted Tuesday night. “People are struggling with hunger and with tropical insects… refugees are digging into the ground to find water. It’s a tropical area and people think they will reach fresh water.”

Long a source for controversy in Australia and abroad, the Manus detention center was permanently closed this week, after Papua New Guinea’s government ruled it was unconstitutional. But some 600 detainees are refusing to leave, saying they fear violence from locals if they relocate to the new accommodation in a nearby town.

“They are quite concerned for their safety, they want to continue peacefully protesting,” Amnesty International’s Kate Schuetze told VICE News over the phone from Manus. “They say it’s unsafe for them to come to town because a number of them have been robbed or assault coming into town… They know the locals don’t want them here.”

Control of the detention center was handed over to Papua New Guinea’s defense force on Wednesday. Australian Green Party Senator Nick McKim told VICE News that PNG officials denied him entry to the center after the handover, telling him the land was now on an active military base. It’s not yet clear whether the army will move to forcibly remove the 600 men, if they continue refuse transfer.

Tensions between the detainees and the PNG army have run high since April, when soldiers allegedly shot at detainees.

The Australian Government isn’t handling the crisis particularly well either, accusing the 600 men inside Manus of trying to “force a change” to Australia’s draconian immigration policy.

“These people attempted to subvert Australia’s laws by paying people smugglers to bring them illegally to Australia by boat — none will ever resettle here,” immigration minister Peter Dutton said Tuesday. “They have long claimed the Manus [regional processing center] was a ‘hellhole ‘— but the moment it was to close they demanded it be kept open.”

Dutton said there is “safe and secure alternate accommodation where health and other services will be maintained” for all of the men.

Dutton’s assurances don’t square with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which confirmed Wednesday that the new accommodation is “not ready” to house refugees or provide vital services.

“It doesn’t look like it’s ready,” Nat Jit Lam, regional representative for the UNHCR, told ABC radio. “I’m not an expert on engineering but, as a UNHCR officer who’s been working with refugees, I would not be bringing any refugees to stay there, not in that state. It’s not ready at this moment.”

Maddison Connaughton is an editor for Vice Australia.