More asylum seekers in Australian hospitals

Australian doctors are increasingly treating asylum-seekers being held in immigration detention in the country’s north, many suffering mental illness.

Darwin’s major hospital is struggling to treat the large number of asylum seekers who have been traumatized by immigration detention, many asylum seekers have attempted suicide and some have to be admitted to the psychiatric ward.

The Northern Territory branch of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) said three to five detainees from Australian immigration Centre’s were being brought to hospitals every day, many with mental or recurring issues. “They are all complicated cases, because virtually all of them will have some mental health issue,” said Dr Paul Bauert, president of the AMA.

Dr Paul Bauert Said “They are not straightforward (cases), there is a fair degree of mental illness and chronic anxiety with their representations. They often need interpreters which are hard to find. So the whole process… becomes compounded.”

Bauert said while some cases clearly involved psychiatric illness, other asylum-seekers came with chest or abdominal pain which needed to be examined despite the often firm suspicion it related to mental health.

Dr Bauert says immigration health services are not helping. “One of the ways that’s used in an effort to decrease the amount of presentations to the health staff at the detention Centre’s is the use of anti-depressants,” he said.

“One gets the feeling that both Minister [Chris] Bowen and the Health Minister, Plibersek, really don’t understand the health conditions of the Northern Territory population and certainly has no understanding of the amount of psychological stress that they are putting on these unfortunate people in detention.” He says long-term drug use is putting the detainees at further risk.

Rights groups have long criticized Australia’s policy of mandatory detention for asylum-seekers arriving by boat, under which many are kept at remote and isolated detention Centre’s which have been beset by unrest.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the government was concerned about mental health in detention but noted that asylum-seekers had appropriate access to health facilities. “People in detention will be taken to Royal Darwin Hospital when they are medically assessed as requiring emergency or specialist health services for various health complaints,” he added.

Survivors of Indonesian Boat Tragedy Face Uncertain Future

Of the estimated 250 asylum seekers on board the boat which capsized off the Indonesian coast in December, only 47 survived. But despite surviving the tragedy, they face an uncertain future.

Most of the asylum seekers are now being held in an Indonesian detention centre and do not know what will happen to them. Those in detention say that they still haven’t been visited by UNHCR. Five have asked to be returned to their homes in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Turkey. The rest are desperate and say that will get on another boat if they can.

The conditions in the Indonesian detention centre are bad, say the asylum seekers. “I told them I was a refugee, that I had lost my whole family,” said Dawood Waladbegi from Iran. His wife and two children died in the boat sinking. “They spat on me, beat me and told me I was in their country now and it was their rules.”

Ali Mohammad, from Afghanistan, has a black eye and two deep gashes on his legs after the detention center guards beat him for trying to escape. Survivors also said they had been hit with electrical prods after a riot when they tried to break down the detention centre’s fence and threw rocks at staff.

One of the survivors who said he will return home, Esmat Adine, 24, says that he signed the forms to return to Afghanistan because he could not face being held in the detention centre in Indonesia for two years while UNHCR decided whether he was a refugee or not. Even though he fears for his life if he is sent back to Kabul, he says he will try to go to Canada instead. “If Australia doesn’t accept my request I will deport myself and go directly to Kabul airport (and) to Canada,” he said.

The asylum seekers are also traumatized by violent deaths of their families and loved ones. Ten-year-old Athena Hardani from Iran was on the boat with her father, mother and sister. She is one of only three children of the twenty on board to survive. The last thing she remembers before the boat rolled over is her little sister’s face. “I learned to swim in school, but my sister Mobina didn’t,” she says. “My heart is sad because my mother and sister are not here. I know nothing about them.”

Athena was rescued soon after the boat capsized by a passing fishing boat but her father, Mohammad, spent three days clinging to the wreckage of the boat before being picked up by a ferry which happened to be in the area. “We spent three days and two nights that way,” he said. “I thought, ‘I can’t leave my little girl in this harsh world, I must live. I owe her my life.’” The 36-year-old welder from Ahvaz in Iran said that letting go of his younger daughter, eight-year-old Mobina, was the hardest thing he has ever done. “I think my wife had a heart attack from shock, but there was nothing I could do for my little girl.” Father and daughter are believed to be the only related survivors and were reunited by Indonesian authorities on Friday 23rd December 2011.

Another survivor spoke of what he had seen while waiting to be rescued. “Most of the people came out through the windows and died in front of our eyes,” said Syed, a Pakistani Hazara. “I saw their dead bodies floating on the sea. We witnessed all of this madness, death in the water for six hours.”

Jamble, a 25-year-old local fisherman, owns one of the fishing boats that rescued the first group of survivors. He says that he spotted several dark dots from his small wooden fishing vessel and decided to look closer. He and his three crew members were horrified when they saw hysterical and exhausted people clinging to anything that floated. He says the survivors immediately started swimming towards his boat. “They were all fighting, scrambling to get into my boat,” Jamble said. And although he only had room for 10 more people he managed to get 25 asylum seekers onto the boat. He says many of them injured and were begging for water to drink. Those left behind were screaming and crying. “I’m so sad … I feel so guilty, but there were just too many of them.” “I was worried if we took any more we’d sink too,” he said.

Some people travelled to Indonesia from Australia after the tragedy to see if any of the family or friends had survived. Jeremy Jafari, an Afghan Australian, broke down at Bhayangkara Hospital in Surabaya after police showed him a photo of the body of his sister. “I’m certain it’s my younger sister,” he said, crying. “I saw a physical mark on her body.” He was supported by Said Abbas Sultani, another Afghan living in Australia who had also travelled to Indonesia to search for members of his wife’s family from Iran.

The Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency said they had only been able to find 101 dead bodies from the accident. “We have not found anymore bodies over the past two days, so we decided to stop our search and rescue efforts,” they said.

The Australian Government blamed the tragedy on people smugglers. “They’re in the business of making money and they don’t care if it kills people or not,” the Home Affairs Minister said.

The boat journey from Indonesia to Australia is very dangerous. In November another boat, carrying about 70 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan capsized in the same area off Indonesia and at least eight people died.

A Year Since 50 Asylum-seekers died in the Christmas Island Boat Tragedy

A year has passed since a boat carrying asylum seekers crashed into the jagged cliffs off the coast of Christmas Island. The boat, known as SIEV 221, crashed into the sharp rocks early in the morning of December 15. 42 people survived but 50 drowned in the tragedy.

Among the survivors is Sayed Hossien Hossieni. His wife, son and wife’s cousin were among the 50 who drowned.

A year later, Hossien’s application for refugee status was approved and he was granted a permanent protection visa but he remains haunted by the deaths of his wife and son.

“The things I saw during the crash, the memories of my wife, my kid . . . I can’t get those out of my mind,” he said.

“I am living my own nightmare.”

He has not been able to find a job and lives alone in a flat with nothing but some photocopied black and white photos of his wife and child.

In November he tried to end his life and is back in hospital again, still struggling to deal with his loss.

His wife was one of the 20 people whose bodies were never found. This is particularly hard for Hossien. “I still feel my wife’s body — because it wasn’t recovered, I feel she is still there. When I go out to visit people, I can’t stay long — I feel I have to get back home, because Mariem will be waiting for me.”

The boat carrying Hossien and his family was spotted by Christmas Island locals just after dawn on December 15 struggling in the high seas. The Island’s port had been closed for days and the monsoon weather was the worst seen in many years. The boat was headed straight towards the Island. Had it then turned east it would have reached safe waters. Instead, it turned west and was soon dangerously close to the cliffs.

SIEV 221 was an Indonesian fishing boat about 15 metres long.  Before leaving Jakarta, the asylum seekers from Iran and Iraq were told that the boat was comfortable, safe and properly equipped. This was a lie. The only safety equipment on board was 20 to 30 life jackets and the crew were fishermen who had never made the journey before. There were 92 people on board. Another boat had collected the captain as soon as they had entered Australian waters, leaving the asylum seekers and inexperienced crew to make the most dangerous part of the journey on their own.

Christmas Island locals watched horrified as the boat was pushed towards the cliffs by the rough seas. They collected life jackets and waited for the rescue boats to arrive. The hospital was on standby. The boat crashed into the cliffs three times before it broke apart. People and wreckage were thrown into the swirling water.

Hossien remembers the chaos. “Before we hit the cliffs, I emptied a petrol drum and offered it to my wife to hang on to, but she said, ‘You look after the kid’.”

But it was too late. “On hitting the rocks, the planks cracked and slammed into people. About 40 to 70 people just tumbled into each other. As I was trying to reach my wife’s hand, with all the people around we got separated,” he says.

Hossien made it to open sea and to the cliffs where he tried to hang on to a rope thrown by locals. When he realised the waves would crush him against the rocks he let go and swam back from the cliffs. He managed to find a life jacket thrown into the water by the locals and went to try to find his wife and child.

When the rescue boats finally arrived they could not get close to the wreckage in case they crushed people in the rough waves or crashed themselves. Instead they got creative, attaching life jackets and life rings to ropes to get to survivors. 41 people were pulled from the water and one man survived by jumping onto the cliffs. Only 30 bodies were eventually recovered.

The survivors were taken to the Christmas Island Detention Centre where they were kept until their refugee applications were determined. A group of survivors, including Hossien, were briefly released from detention to attend funerals for some of those who had died. Nine bodies were returned to their families in Iran and Iraq for burials there.

Hossien’s friends and relatives back in Iran ask him whether they should use people smugglers to try to get to Australia. “Please do not take such a risk, it is not worth it,” he says.

Indonesia and Australia’s Monsoon Season will put Asylum-seekers at risk of drowning

People smugglers in Indonesia are trying to arrange for their boats to leave quickly before the monsoon season begins and makes the boat journey to Australia even more dangerous.

Reports suggest that there are over 500 people waiting in Indonesia to try to get to Australia by boat without visas.  They are trying to use people smugglers who are eager for their boats to leave soon because they have only another two to three weeks before the monsoon starts.

The monsoon season in Indonesia begins in November and moves south to Australia where it usually lasts for 3 months from December to March.  Throughout the monsoon season there is much heavier rain than normal in northern Australia.  These rains and storms make the seas north of Australia very unsafe for the small wooden Indonesian fishing boats.

A minister of the Australian Government said that he was very concerned about asylum seekers dying while trying to get to Australia by boat.  He said: “We do not want to see asylum-seekers lose their lives. We’ve got the monsoon season coming up. We do not want to see boats arriving and people losing their lives like they did just before Christmas last year.”

During last year’s monsoon season in December 2010 a boat carrying Iranian, Afghan and Iraqi asylum seekers crashed into rocks off the coast of Christmas Island during a monsoon.  30 people drowned and the bodies of another 18 asylum seekers were never found.

At the beginning of the monsoon season last November 2010, a month before the Christmas Island boat tragedy, another boat carrying asylum-seekers went missing between Indonesia and Australia. Relatives and friends of those asylum-seekers say that they heard their loved ones were getting on a boat but then never heard from them again. According to Australian authorities, boats usually take 2 to 4 days to reach Australian waters from Indonesia. It has almost been a year now since that boat left Indonesia on November 13.

Over the years there have been many cases of boats sinking or going missing on the way to Australia. The bad weather during monsoon season makes the sea journey even more dangerous. While the exact number of asylum-seeker deaths at sea will never be known, those attempting to count the deaths of irregular migrants at sea have estimated that only one in three bodies are ever recovered.

Video Link : http://bit.ly/o5dj3P

Malaysia Plan Still an Option for Australia’s Government

The Australian Government’s plan to send asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat to Malaysia is still up in the air after debate on the law to allow offshore processing was delayed this morning because the Government did not have the votes.

The Government was going to introduce the law for debate today.  After it became clear that they would lose the vote, they held an emergency cabinet meeting and delayed the vote for a later date.

The politician with the deciding vote, Mr Crook, said last night that he would not support the changes.  He said that the new law could stop asylum seekers trying to get to Australia by boat but he was worried about how the asylum seekers, especially children, would be treated in Malaysia.

Malaysia has not signed the United Nation’s Refugee Convention.

But Mr Crook said that he would support the law changes proposed by the Opposition because these would allow offshore processing in countries which have signed the Refugee Convention – like Nauru.

Nauru has recently signed the Refugee Convention and the Opposition would like asylum seekers arriving by boat to be sent there instead of Malaysia.

The Opposition says that the offshore processing centre in Nauru was successful in protecting Australia’s borders and deterring people smuggling.

The system, often called the Pacific Solution, was implemented by the Opposition between 2001 and 2007.  The Leader of the Opposition says that Nauru is a “proven solution for offshore processing”.

Almost all Australian politicians support offshore processing at the moment, suggesting that the Government and the Opposition only need to agree on which country the asylum seekers arriving by boat will be sent.

The Government said this morning that they “remained committed” to the Malaysia swap deal.

Asylum-seeker deals for Malaysia and Papua New Guinea to be decided this week

This week the leaders of Australia and Papua New Guinea will meet to continue their discussions to reopen the Manus Island Detention centre.

In August, Australia made an agreement with PNG to reopen the detention centre on Manus Island for asylum-seekers who try to come to Australia by boat without valid visas.  The plan has been delayed after the Australian High Court decision that the Gillard Government’s plan to process asylum-seekers in Malaysia was unlawful. The Government hopes to resume its offshore processing plans after the Australian parliament votes this Thursday on changes to the Migration laws so that asylum-seekers can be sent to Malaysia.

PNG’s representative in Australia said that his government “is ready and willing to cooperate with Australia on any solutions through Manus processing centre”.

Amnesty International and other refugee groups have criticized the plan to send asylum-seekers to Manus Island, saying that sending them to PNG is no different to sending them to Nauru.

Another leading Australian organisation condemned conditions on Manus Island.  The Executive Director of the Australian Council for International Development stated that there was “overwhelming evidence” that people detained in Nauru and on Manus Island “suffered mental damage with self harm and suicide attempts a common occurrence, and an absence of trained counsellors and staff being able to cope.”  He also said that many of these asylum-seekers were still being treated for trauma and mental health issues following their detention.

An Australian lawyer who worked on Manus Island in 2008 said that conditions in the detention centre on Manus Island had been very hot, humid and cramped.  He said that “it would be pretty tough going” for asylum-seekers in the centre.

“During my travels around there I was told that people had tried to commit suicide by throwing themselves on power boxes, trying to electrocute themselves obviously in a state of hysteria or despair I should say.  […]  So obviously those people had quite enough and weren’t prepared to continue on there. They’re the sort of stories that I heard, again only hearsay from locals who observed these things they say”, he continued.

Meanwhile, the UN agency for refugees told parliament today that sending asylum-seekers to Malaysia is better for them than being detained in Australia. UNHCR Regional Representative Richard Towle has said that the conditions in the agreement between Australia and Malaysia mean that an asylum-seeker would be treated better there than they would in Australian detention. Australia’s policy of mandatory detention does not allow asylum-seekers to work or live in the community, which Malaysia would allow.

UNHCR’s support for the agreement with Malaysia is crucial ahead of Thursday’s parliamentary vote to make the Malaysia deal legal. No Australian Prime Minister has lost a vote on changes to the law in parliament for 80 years.

Australia told detention of child asylum-seekers is abuse

Refugee advocates have criticized the Australian Government for sending 73 unaccompanied child asylum seekers to a remote detention centre in rural Western Australia.

A plane carrying 36 teenage boys seeking asylum landed in the remote town after the Australian Government decided to use the town’s detention centre to hold unaccompanied youths.

The boys, aged 14 to 17, are believed to be mostly from Afghanistan. Another 37 asylum seeker children will also be flown to the centre.

The Australian Government had planned to send the teenage boys to Malaysia for processing as part of a deal between Malaysia and Australia. But the High Court rejected this plan because Malaysia has not signed the UN’s refugee convention.

According to recent statistics from the Australian Department of Immigration the majority of children currently in detention come from Iran and Afghanistan. 246 children have come from Iran and 187 from Afghanistan.

The Refugee Rights Action Network says detaining children is a form of child abuse. “We do know as a matter of absolute certainty that children that are held in immigration detention experience levels of depression, of self-harm and of suicide that is never seen in children that are held in the community”, they said.

The Australian Medical Association said it was worried about the mental health of detainees, and that children were suffering from depression and self-harm.

“We are aware of a nine-year-old child who was recently admitted for trying to commit suicide,” the Association told a committee of Australian politicians investigating the detention system.

They said hospitals had also reported large numbers of adults with mental health problems hurting themselves on purpose and requiring medical treatment.

Australia has a policy of mandatory detention that requires all people arriving in the country without a valid Australian visa to be detained in remote facilities while their applications for asylum are assessed. Some people wait for a year or more to find out whether they can stay in Australia or not.

A doctor at the Australian Medical Association has said, “Mandatory detention is medically harmful, violates human rights, has no known beneficial effects and is a waste of money”.

Australia sticks to Malaysia plan

Prime Minister Ms. Julia Gillard and Immigration Minister Chris Bowen announced that the government would change the migration law after a High Court decision that put in doubt the Malaysian refugee swap deal and other forms of offshore processing.

Ms. Gillard said the amendments would simply restore the understanding of the Migration Act that existed prior to the High Court’s decision. The processing of asylum-seekers in other countries would be allowed and the Government would have the power to decided where they should be sent.

Ms. Gillard says the Government is determined to continue to implement the agreement with Malaysia.

Under the Malaysian deal, Australia would send the next 800 asylum-seekers that arrive by boat to Malaysia in exchange for 4,000 processed and recognized refugees.

The government’s advice remained that the Malaysian agreement would send a strong message to people-smugglers and deter asylum-seekers from making the dangerous sea journey by boat.

“That is why Malaysia, when we announced it, was the best option for smashing the people smugglers’ business model. It remains the best option”, Ms. Gillard says.

The government would also use the changes to send asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea.

The Government insists the new policy will fulfill Australia’s obligations under the United Nations convention.

The proposed changes will be introduced to Australia’s Parliament next week for approval.

Australia is currently detaining all asylum-seekers arriving by boat, including several hundred in a Centre on Christmas Island which has seen riots in recent months.

Changes to Australia’s asylum-seeker policies

There have been many changes in Australia’s policies towards asylum-seekers in the last six weeks. Some of them have been perceived as good for asylum-seekers that want to go there and some have been seen as bad. One thing that has not changed though is Australia’s commitment to break the people-smuggling business and to stop asylum-seekers making the dangerous journey to Australia by boat.

Tomorrow the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard will present a new policy to deal with asylum-seekers. Media reports suggest that the government will now try to change the Migration Act – the law controlling immigration to Australia – so the deal with Malaysia will become legal and Australia will be able to process asylum-seekers off-shore.

On 31 August, the High Court rejected the deal, saying that under existing law, Australia could not transfer asylum-seekers to another country unless that nation was bound by law to protect them. Refugee activists that argued the case for asylum-seekers in court say they are disappointed the government could now change the law.

While the Malaysia solution is likely to be revived, the government also has a few other options to consider. While waiting for the High Court decision, the government signed an agreement with Papua New Guinea to reopen a detention centre on Manus Island to receive newly arriving asylum-seekers for processing. There has also been discussion of making a deal with Nauru to reopen a detention centre there.

If you are being told that now is the time to go to Australia then be careful because things can change quickly again. With all the options I described it could even get worse for asylum-seekers going there.

High Court stops Australia from sending asylum-seekers to Malaysia

The High Court ruling on Wednesday 31 August 2011 prevents the Australian government from transferring 800 asylum-seekers to Malaysia under the swap deal it signed last month.

The plan to send asylum-seekers to Malaysia was a part of Australia’s regional response to stop thousands of boat people who arrive in Australia every year.

The High Court ruled by a majority of six to one that the Immigration Minister could not send asylum-seekers to any country that was not “legally bound by international or domestic law to provide access for asylum-seekers to effective procedures for assessing their need for protection”.

The court said in a statement that Malaysia has not signed the UN Refugee Convention and that there was no guarantee that refugees would be recognized and protected under Malaysia’s domestic law.

The Immigration Minister Chris Bowen called the high court ruling “profoundly disappointing”.Bowen said the government’s plans to send asylum-seekers to Malaysia for processing had acted as a deterrent to those thinking of making the dangerous journey to Australia.

Many have died on that journey, including dozens who drowned last December when their boat smashed on rocks on the island in heavy seas.

Mr. Bowen said: “We’ve had the people smugglers in retreat. Now, today’s decision is a significant blow, but it does not undermine my or the government’s determination to break the people smugglers’ model.”

The case was brought to court on behalf of 16 asylum-seekers who were a part of the first group of asylum-seekers to be sent to Malaysia. The lawyer acting for them, David Manne, said his clients were very relieved.

For now, the 335 asylum-seekers who arrived to Australia since the Malaysian deal was signed will remain in detention on Christmas Island but it is unclear whether they will be processed in Australia or elsewhere.

The Australian government is still considering other countries for its regional approach and it recently signed an agreement with Papua New Guinea to reopen the Manus Island detention facility there.