- Sputnik International
Asia
Find top stories and features from Asia and the Pacific region. Keep updated on major political stories and analyses from Asia and the Pacific. All you want to know about China, Japan, North and South Korea, India and Pakistan, Southeast Asia and Oceania.

Protesters at Manus Island Ready to Donate Organs to Australians

© Flickr / DIBP ImagesManus Island regional processing facility
Manus Island regional processing facility - Sputnik International
Subscribe
Asylum seekers at the Australian detention center on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, want to donate their organs to Australians, if they die in the current riots.

A deported Sri Lankan disembarks from a bus outside a court in Negombo, Sri Lanka - Sputnik International
Asia
Human Rights Groups Urge Australia to Stop Forced Returns of Asylum Seekers
MOSCOW, January 19 (Sputnik) — Asylum seekers at the Australian detention center for undocumented immigrants on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, have offered to donate their organs to Australian citizens in the event of their death in the current riots, ABC reported Monday.

The information is taken from a letter written by one of the compound's barricaded detainees, in anticipation of an expected police assault.

"All asylum seekers on Manus Island in [the] hunger strike ask you to hand over our medical records to organ donation organization[s] in case of our fatalities inside the cage," the letter reads, as quoted by ABC.

The water supply to the detention center has been cut and local police are preparing for an assault on the protesters, according to ABC.

More than 700 people, or over two-thirds of the center's population, are refusing food, in an escalation of the detainees' plight. Last week, an asylum seeker swallowed three razor blades to protest the length of stay of his detention and the conditions for asylum seekers at the facility, according to Guardian Australia, which added that 15 detainees had sewn their lips shut.

The Manus Island Regional Processing Center, used by Australia to detain undocumented immigrants, is located in Papua New Guinea, but is run by a private company hired by the Australian government.

Asylum seekers are asking the Australian government to either give them refugee status or hand over their cases to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They are afraid of being forcibly resettled in the local community in Papua New Guinea, insisting that the local population is hostile toward immigrants.

An asylum seeker is pictured with his lips sewn together in this handout picture provided by the refugee action coalition, taken inside the Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea January 13, 2015. - Sputnik International
Asia
Migrant Swallows Razor Blades in Protest at Australia’s Detention Center
A previous hunger strike at the detention center turned into a riot in February 2014, resulting in the death of one man, allegedly attacked by a local warden. An additional 70 people were injured.

Over 20,000 asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat in 2013, according to the Refugee Council of Australia. Most of them, traveling via Indonesia, originated from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Sri Lanka.

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала