The Manus Island immigration detention centre is slated for closure by the end of 2017, a senior Australian government bureaucrat has told a court.
An article by Ben Doherty, The Guardian.
“The Papua New Guinean high court [sic] has indicated that they want it closed, and certainly the indications from the government are that they are looking that the facility should be closed by the end of this year,” Paul Douglas, assistant secretary with the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection, said in evidence before the Queensland coroner.
Douglas’s comments coincide with efforts inside the Australian-run detention centre to escalate forcible deportations from the island, as well as ongoing interviews with US officials about resettlement in America.
Douglas, the former chief medical officer for the department and now assistant secretary of the health policy and performance branch, was appearing at the coronial inquest into the 2014 death of Hamid Kehazaei, who died from a treatable infection contracted at the Manus centre.
In the context of Kehazaei’s death and efforts to prevent more fatalities in offshore detention, Douglas was asked what the Australian and PNG governments’ plans were for the Manus facility. Douglas said “nothing is firm” about the proposed closure, but that it was intended for the camp to be shuttered by the end of the year.
Read the full article at the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/15/manus-island-detention-centre-to-close-by-years-end-inquest-told
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