Desperate asylum seekers resort to self harm in Manus Island protests



A MAN drops to the floor, writhing, then still.

“What’s going on, guys?” a panicked security officer asks as he rushes over.

“He eat the razor.”

Shocking vision sent to news.com.au shows this confronting scene, a taste of what’s going on Manus Island where asylum seekers have resorted to self harm, stitching their lips and reportedly swallowing razor blades in protest of their detention and living conditions.

The 40-year-old Egyptian man is one of about 30 asylum seekers who have taken to self harm with another 500 on hunger strike s a protest at the detention centre becomes increasingly volatile, a refugee advocacy group says.



He is believed to be receiving medical treatment, and a fellow asylum seeker had told the ABC his condition had deteriorated rapidly.

The man’s sister Samar, a refugee who now lives in Sydney, told the ABC he had told her he wanted to die.

“When he talks with me yesterday, I asked him what happened, he said, ‘I took razors’ and he’s sewing his lips. I asked him why you take this bad thing?” she said.

“I said to him, ‘You’re not to die’ and he said, ‘Yes, I want to die’.”

Samar said her father had told her his body had gone “white, and my legs are blue”, and had complained about conditions on Manus Island including threats from guards to rape and assault detainees if they did not stop their protests.



A spokesman for Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has acknowledged a “peaceful” protest, and conceded some asylum seekers had harmed themselves.

“There are also a number of transferees who are refusing food and fluids, again they are being offered appropriate support.” The protest, which began on Tuesday, has now spread across four of the centre’s compounds where people are refusing to return to their rooms, Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul told AAP.

He said tensions are rising and people are feeling anxious and desperate.

Mr Rintoul said detainees deemed to be genuine refugees by authorities were fearful of being transferred to a new centre on the island at East Lorengau, where they feared attacks by locals. “There is no immediate security in terms of physical safety on Manus Island, but there is no durable security for refugees on Papua New Guinea full stop,” Mr Rintoul said.


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The immigration department spokesman said the Australian and Papua New Guinean governments remained committed to regional resettlement arrangements.

Greens immigration spokeswoman Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said Australia was a “better country than this”.

“I have grave concerns for all those detained at the Manus Island camp,” Senator Hanson-Young said.

“As the level of self-harm escalates it is clear that the refugees inside feel they have nothing more to live for.”

The latest protests come a month before the first anniversary of a riot at the camp left one dead and 69 injured.



Iranian Reza Barati was killed in the unrest at the Manus Island detention centre in February last year as tensions flared among inmates about their fate.

Sixty-nine others were injured in the violence, which was described in a parliamentary report in December as “eminently foreseeable” and mostly caused by delays in processing refugee claims.

Manus Island houses one of two remote Pacific camps used by Canberra, with the other facility on the remote island of Nauru.

Some 1,035 men are held on Manus Island, according to immigration figures ending December 31. No women and children are detained in the camp.

A total of 895 asylum seekers — 596 men, 164 women and 135 children — are held on Nauru.

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