On February 27 we had a meeting with a senior DIMIA [Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs] officer, and we [were] told that DIMIA will find [a solution to] our problem within two months.
Now, the two months have [passed] and nothing indicates any solution, and the Australian government is not intending to consider our situation, and they are denying whatever they say to us. They insult us and defame our reputation by calling us dangerous people and criminals.
The Australian migration minister, in responding to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees' request of getting all of the asylum seekers on Nauru accepted as refugees, [declared]: "That won't be happening. The offshore processing is the single-most effective deterrent to people smugglers." All of these things buried us in the hell of desperation and frustration which possibly will push us to harm ourselves.
We will never allow anybody to use us as human shields and to achieve political gains by making us the material for that.
Please, ask the DIMIA to find a solution for us within the next few days, or they will be fully responsible, before God, before the law and before all of the benevolent people in Australia and the world, [for] what will happen to us.
We are not willing to use any other way than communications, but apparently the Australian government has made its decision and chose that we go this way by shutting all hopes and leaving no exit for us.
We are begging you (Australian people, respectful lawyers and each honest individual) to work on our behalf ... to rescue us from Nauru hell.
55 Iraqi rescue seekers, buried in a Nauru mass grave
[Abridged from an appeal received on April 30. The 55 Iraqis are among 252 asylum seekers still trapped in limbo on Nauru, imprisoned for nearly three years without confirmation of what will happen to them. Following a 28-day hunger strike in December and January by up to 45 asylum seekers, the UNHCR and DIMIA agreed to reassess all their claims for refugee status. DIMIA conducted a series of interviews in February and March, but asylum seekers are still awaiting the results.]
From Green Left Weekly, May 5, 2004.
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