Politics

Refugee Advocates Say There’s A Suicide Crisis On Manus Island Following The Election

"If I were to use one phrase to describe the situation in the Manus prison camps it is this: this prison is quite frankly a graveyard."

by Sam Langford  22 May 2019
Manus Island

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There have been at least four suicide attempts in Australia’s offshore detention centres this week alone, according to refugee advocates who describe the situation as a “crisis” following the federal election result on Saturday.

According to journalist and refugee Behrouz Boochani, who has been held on Manus Island since 2013, there have been nine suicide attempts since the election result was announced. “The refugees in Manus have been dumped in a high depression. I have never seen people like this before,” Boochani wrote on Twitter.

“The federal election had a huge negative imapact [sic] on people in Manus and Nauru. People have completely lost hope that the gov will accept the New Zealand offer”.

“If I were to use one phrase to describe the situation in the Manus prison camps it is this: this prison is quite frankly a graveyard.”

Boochani is not alone in reporting recent suicides on Manus Island, though accounts differ. On Tuesday, Refugee Action Coalition spokesperson Ian Rintoul shared photos of a suicide note written by a 31-year-old Sudanese refugee who he says attempted suicide that morning.

According to Rintoul, two other refugees are currently in Lorengau hospital following suicide attempts, one more had just left the hospital, and yet another is currently at the Pacific International Hospital (PIH) clinic at the East Lorengau compound. Two other refugees reportedly attempted to set fire to themselves or their rooms on Sunday, and are currently being held at a low-security compound nearby. Manus Provincial Police Commander David Yapu told Agence France-Presse that he was aware of at least ten suicide attempts, including four on the weekend.

“It has been building for six years, but the weekend’s election result has precipitated a crisis that the government can not afford to ignore,” Rintoul said on Tuesday. Speaking to Junkee today, he said he believes to connection between the election result and the recent suicide attempts is “pretty clear”.

“The number of self harm events and attempted suicides was increasing even before the election, but you don’t get seven attempts in two or three days without it being provoked by something. It’s quite clear that those in Manus Island and Port Moresby have been impacted,” he said.

Other refugee advocates have echoed concerns that the election result, guaranteeing another three years of the Coalition government’s offshore detention policies, has seriously impacted the mental health of asylum seekers.

Kon Karapanagiotidis, founder of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, wrote on Twitter today to share a story of a visitor to the ASRC this week.

“When one of our volunteers opened the door at the ASRC, she greeted a man whose [sic] always first in line on a Tuesday, who last week was hopeful, who looked at her and started crying. ‘I have waited 6 years for my freedom, I know I will have to wait at least another 3 years now'”.

Karapanagiotidis and others are calling for Australians to do anything they can to support asylum seekers at this time, from calling local MPs to volunteering for organisations like the ASRC.

The Department of Home Affairs did not respond to our request to confirm the number of suicide attempts in offshore detention centres this week. Instead, a spokesperson for the department wrote that “the Government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) is responsible for the delivery of regional processing arrangements in PNG. The Department of Home Affairs takes seriously its role in supporting the Government of PNG to ensure refugees and failed asylum seekers are provided with a range of health, welfare and support services arrangements. This has not changed.”