Nauru Regional Processing Center

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Coordinates: 0 ° 32 ′ 27.6 ″  S , 166 ° 55 ′ 48 ″  E

Tents to house the refugees in Nauru (2012)

The Nauru Regional Processing Center is an institution of two refugee camps on the Pacific island nation of Nauru , operated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) , since March 2006 under Australian and Nauruan supervision. Both camps were in Meneng : One, called the State House , was on the site of the former residence of the President of the Republic. The other, called Top Side , was on the site of an old sports field and was closed in September 2004. In February 2008, when the State House camp was closed, the institution established as part of the " Pacific Solution " was dissolved by the Australian government, but it was reopened in August 2012.

378 people are currently accommodated in the Nauru Regional Processing Center (as of February 2017, trend: downwards).

Another such internment camp outside Australian territory is on the island of Manus in Papua New Guinea . It is the Manus Regional Processing Center .

prehistory

On August 27, 2001, Arne Rinnan , the captain of the Norwegian freighter MS Tampa , rescued 433 refugees from Afghanistan , Sri Lanka , India , Pakistan and Iran from a sinking wooden boat off Indonesia . Then the controlled MS Tampa to Christmas Island , an Australian territory outside of, to put the refugees ashore. The Australian government refused to do so. When the Tampa set a distress signal and entered Australian waters, Australian soldiers from the Australian Special Air Service Regiment boarded the freighter, preventing it from docking in Flying Fish Cove , the island's main town. In doing so, the government circumvented the refugees from entering Australian soil, which would have granted automatic asylum seekers .

The behavior of the Australian government in the course of the so-called Tampa affair led to a diplomatic crisis between Australia and Norway and it sparked criticism worldwide. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said this is not a way of dealing with refugees. Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorbjørn Jagland accused Australia of undermining the United Nations Refugee Convention . On September 2, the Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced the Pacific solution for dealing with the boat refugees: instead of leaving them ashore on Christmas Island, the 433 refugees should be transported to New Zealand and Nauru .

For example, on September 4, the Australian Confederation reached an agreement with the governments of the participating Pacific states to resolve the refugee drama: 283 refugees will be accepted by Nauru and 150 by New Zealand. The President of the Republic of Nauru, René Harris , saw his state in a position to take in the illegal immigrants temporarily. His people are hospitable, and a place has already been found for the construction of temporary accommodation, he says. Ten houses on Nauru that were supposed to accommodate the participants in the World Weightlifting Championship , which was canceled in December 2000 , were also empty . On September 20, 2001, the 283 mostly Afghan refugees reached the island of Nauru and were taken to the two refugee camps. A few Iraqis joined them later.

The refugees in Nauru

On April 10, 2002, around 250 Afghan asylum seekers were arrested after attempting to break out of a refugee camp and brought back to the camp. The background to the unrest was reports that only 7 of the 292 Afghan asylum seekers should be recognized as refugees in the sense of the United Nations .

Unrest like this has repeatedly led to criticism that the refugees are not being treated well. The Nauruan parliamentarians Kieren Keke and David Adeang emphasize, however, that the refugees would receive hot meals and the best possible medical care several times a day. They even have a higher standard of living than most Nauru people. Since no Australian doctors have been allowed to visit the refugee camps since January 2004, the few Nauruan doctors under the direction of Kieren Keke take on this task.

In 2001 the vocational training center was burned down by Nauruan citizens to demonstrate against the refugee camps and the political actions of President René Harris . Nauru is seen as a prison for undesirable asylum seekers. However, Nauru is royally rewarded by operator Australia for caring for the refugees , and these payments are currently Nauru's only financial income; without these payments, the island nation's infrastructure could not function and Nauru would be finally bankrupt. However, the number of refugees is falling steadily as more and more refugees are now recognized as legal.

In June 2004, Australian human rights activists attempted to attract attention to the refugees in Australia with the trip of some yachts, the Flotilla of Hope , to the refugees. Since it was an unauthorized action, the yachts a few hundred meters from the Nauruan coast were asked to leave the Nauruan territorial waters immediately. The yachts had presents for the refugees on board, but they could not hand them over. In September 2004 the Flotilla of Hope returned to Cairns , but had previously announced further actions.

On September 9, 2004, 21 refugees were granted asylum in New Zealand . Therefore the northern refugee camp Top Side was closed. The remaining 90 or so refugees remained in the southern State House camp in Meneng. In December 2004 more refugees were allowed to immigrate to Australia, so that in 2005 there were about 40 refugees left. On June 22, 2005, Australia granted asylum to the last family with children.

In November 2005, the last remaining group of refugees was granted asylum; What remains are the two Iraqis Mohammed Faisal and Mohammed Sagar, who, according to an Australian expert opinion, represented a security risk and were therefore not granted asylum. Meanwhile, the cost of the Nauru Regional Processing Center has increased sixfold since November 2005, from 150,000 to one million Australian dollars . In March 2006, responsibility for warehouse operations was transferred from the IOM to the Australian and Nauruan authorities.

closure

After Howard's defeat by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was elected in his place, in November 2007, the remaining State House camp was closed in February 2008 after the last Burmese and Sri Lankan refugees were granted asylum in Australia. This marked the end of the Pacific solution .

reopening

In August 2012, the Australian government decided to reintroduce the Pacific solution , which also led to the reopening of the Nauru Regional Processing Center . In September 2012 the first people, 30 Sri Lankan refugees, were brought to Nauru. A temporary tent camp was set up to accommodate them.

In July 2013 riots broke out when around 150 mostly Iranian asylum seekers tried to break out of the camp. Several refugees and security personnel were injured, and some buildings on the camp site burned down.

According to critics, the state of Nauru "was not in a position, even with Australian personnel and money, to operate the outsourcing of refugee internment on a standard to which Australia has committed itself under international law". In August 2016, the human rights organizations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch published a joint report complaining about regular attacks against refugees, completely inadequate accommodation and medical care, and restrictions on communication and access for refugees and journalists. They mainly blamed the Australian government and the private companies that are supposed to look after the refugees to be responsible. On August 10, 2016, the British daily The Guardian published leaked documents in excess of 8,000 pages. They report numerous cases of abuse and self-harm.

Australia tried to clarify: 1819 of the cases mentioned in the Guardian documents were only "minor" (insignificant) and only 23 were described as "critical" (serious). Violence and self-harm are by no means commonplace phenomena. The Guardian editors, however, insisted on their position that Australia must allow people access to its territory or be responsible for their relocation to other countries.

In October 2016, Amnesty International stated in a report that the treatment of around 400 refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru should be classified as torture under international law .

Australian National Justice Project activists forced Australian courts to relocate more than a dozen children to mainland Australia on medical grounds by the end of August 2018. At the end of October 2018, another 135 people were relocated to Australia in a short period of time. According to Peter Dutton, however, permanent settlement of the people in Australia should continue to be ruled out.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Australia reopens asylum detention in Nauru tent city of September 4, 2012 (accessed April 6, 2013).
  2. ↑ Monthly Operational Update: February 2017. Current transferee populations and refugee populations - Regional Processing Centers. In: newsroom.border.gov.au. Department of Immigration and Border Protection, March 3, 2017, archived from the original ; accessed on March 3, 2017 (English).
  3. ^ Spiegel Online: Unrest on Nauru: Asylum seekers revolt in Australian refugee camp on July 20, 2013 (accessed on July 23, 2013).
  4. ↑ Australia's Fight Against Boat People. In: ipg-journal. 2014, accessed March 30, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Australia: Appalling abuse, neglect of refugees on Nauru , Amnesty International, August 2, 2016
  6. ↑ Refugees attacked 'on a daily basis' on Nauru, human rights groups say , The Guardian, August 3, 2016
  7. ↑ Paul Farrell, Nick Evershed, Helen Davidson: The Nauru files: cache of 2,000 leaked reports reveal scale of abuse of children in Australian offshore detention. In: The Guardian . Guardian News & Media Ltd., August 10, 2016, accessed August 10, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Nick Evershed, Ri Liu, Paul Farrell, Helen Davidson: The lives of asylum seekers in detention detailed in a unique database. In: The Guardian . Guardian News & Media Ltd., August 10, 2016, accessed August 10, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Refugees on Nauru suffer from abuse and harassment. In: The time . Zeitverlag , August 10, 2016, accessed August 10, 2016 .
  10. ^ Paul Maley: "Immigration rejects mass abuse, violence on Nauru" The Australian of October 15, 2016
  11. ^ "The Guardian view on the Nauru files: Australia's offshore detention centers breed misery" The Guardian of August 10, 2016
  12. ↑ Amnesty accuses Australia of torturing refugees. In: time online. October 17, 2016, accessed March 20, 2018 .
  13. ↑ Island of despair. Australia's “processing” of refugees on Nauru. Amnesty International, October 2016, archived from the original on March 19, 2018 ; Retrieved on March 30, 2018 (English): "The Government of Australia's" processing "of refugees and asylum-seekers on Nauru is a deliberate and systematic regime of neglect and cruelty, and amounts to torture under international law." p. 43.
  14. ↑ Ben Doherty: "'Begging to die': succession of critically ill children moved off Nauru" The Guardian of August 24, 2018
  15. ↑ Katharine Murphy and Helen Davidson: "Peter Dutton: resettling refugees in New Zealand risks return of boats" The Guardian of November 1, 2018

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