BY SARAH STEPHEN
There are 437 asylum seekers imprisoned in camps funded by the Australian government on Nauru, 169 of them children. Forty-nine people have been granted refugee status, yet are still waiting to be accepted for resettlement by a country.
A handful of asylum seekers are from Bangladesh and Pakistan. The majority are from Afghanistan and Iraq. Many refugees have been worn down and pressured into agreeing to "voluntary" return to the countries they fled from. Others maintain that it is impossible for them to return.
According to Elaine and Geoff Smith, who corresponded with some of the asylum seekers on Nauru, those who have been recognised as refugees have been on strike since June 4, demanding to be moved from Nauru to a third country for resettlement.
An Afghan asylum seeker wrote to the Smiths on May 18, detailing the appalling conditions asylum seekers have been forced to endure for almost two years.
According to the letter, the medical care in the camp is utterly inadequate. "Some people have lost their eyesight and need to see an eye specialist. They have been waiting to have their eyes checked since they arrived in Nauru. There are over 60 persons who need to see a dentist but the dentists only see two patients in a week in Nauru hospital."
Detainees have been forced to wait for eight months to have dental problems treated.
"We are not provided appropriate food. We are provided rotten vegetables and beans full of insects. We are provided one apple or one orange in our lunch but we haven't had any fruits for the last 10 days."
When detainees complained to the International Organisation for Migration, which runs the camps for the Australian immigration department (DIMIA), IOM's head officer Cy Winter told the detainees they should only complain if they found more than five insects in a meal.
"We are not provided enough water for washing. There is salty water in bathrooms just for four to six hours a day." The letters says the 400 detainees in the camp have access to clean water for only 1-2 hours a day, which runs from eight small taps.
This has led detainees to drink rain water collected from the camp's tennis court, leading to stomach aches and sore throats.
"Whenever we put pressure on IOM for fulfilment of our legal demands, IOM send us directly to prison. We must follow whatever IOM and DIMIA tell us otherwise we are put in a Nauru prison."
The letter complains that journalists are denied access to the camps and the detainees. "No one is allowed to enter [the camp] except government agencies and IOM. So we don't have access to any journalist to speak about our situation and convey our messages to the people."
From Green Left Weekly, June 18, 2003.
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