Australian election result sparks 'wave of suicide and self-harm' among Manus refugees
Reports from Manus Island in northern Papua New Guinea indicate that the victory of the anti-immigration coalition in the Australian election has caused a wave of suicides and self-harm among refugees living on the island, a significant portion of whom are Iranians.
According to AFP, Australian police are reporting 10 suicides, at least four of which have occurred since Saturday, when the Conservative coalition's victory in the election was confirmed.
The report also indicates that a number of refugees committed self-harm on Saturday and Sunday, with some of them being hospitalized, and other cases of hunger strikes and burning of detention rooms have also been reported.
Manus Island belongs to Papua New Guinea, but since 2013 the Australian government has turned it into a detention center for asylum seekers who try to reach the country by boat.
On Saturday this week, the Conservative coalition unexpectedly won the Australian election, something that even the country's Conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison himself called a "miracle."
This is despite the fact that both political analysts and asylum seekers, based on the results of various polls, expected the center-left party to win the election. The center-left party has a softer approach towards illegal immigrants and refugees.
The Australian government has implemented strict policies against illegal immigrants to the country for six years now, under which no boats will sail into the country's waters to bring in illegal immigrants.
Around 800 asylum seekers who had previously tried to reach Australia were sent by the Australian government to detention centres on the remote islands of Nauru and Manus, where conditions have been described as harsh.
In recent months, these refugees had hoped for the Labor Party's victory in Australia and, consequently, improved conditions for accepting refugees.
More than 1,000 men, women and children, many of whom are said to be Iranian, are living in camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, told they will never be granted Australian residency. In addition to Iran, most of the asylum seekers on the islands are from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Sudan.
Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian Kurdish refugee who has been detained on Manus since 2013, told AFP that since news of the Conservative Party's victory broke, "despair has overshadowed the refugees" and nine of the refugees on Manus have committed suicide.
He added that "the situation is out of control and I have never seen Manus in such a state before."
Australian officials have previously said hundreds of refugees are likely to remain in the camps indefinitely because no other country is willing to accept them.
Australia has previously tried to reach an agreement with Iranian authorities to return Iranian asylum seekers whose asylum claims have been rejected, but asylum seekers' lawyers say Iran refuses to accept rejected asylum seekers who are being deported against their will from other countries.
Human rights defenders have repeatedly expressed concern about the civil rights situation on the island, and there have been repeated demonstrations in Australia against the government's treatment of refugees.
Source: Radio Farda
