Canberra
Confidential documents from inside Australia’s offshore detention centre on Manus Island reveal bleak and brutal conditions inside, including persistently high rates of self-harm, repeated suicide attempts, regular violent and sexual assaults, and warnings of an emerging culture of drug use by staff and detainees.
Incident reports obtained by the Guardian show that on several occasions, four men in detention on Manus have attempted suicide and self-harm in a single day. In one week, 16 self-harm and suicide attempts were recorded by authorities.
Internal working documents show a deteriorating state of mental health for many refugees and asylum seekers detained on the Papua New Guinean island. Medical reports obtained by the Guardian detail incidents of psychosis, hallucinations, refusal to eat or drink , and of complete withdrawal from communication.
Three levels of watch
Several refugees and asylum seekers have made sustained and repeated attempts to kill themselves, the documents show. Internal documents for Broadspectrum, the private company that manages the Manus site on behalf of the Australian government, detail three levels of “Whiskey watch” - close observation of people deemed to be at most risk of killing themselves.
It is common for several refugees to be on “high” watch simultaneously. Shift documents show that people at serious risk of self-harm have to be kept within “arm’s length” of a guard for 24 hours, even when bathing or sleeping.
Guards are issued with “cut-down knives” to rescue refugees who attempt to hang themselves, and are instructed on how to remove hanging people and revive them.
The Guardian has seen these instruction documents but has chosen not to publish them or their details. PNG and Australian government officials announced this week that the closure of the Manus Island detention centre would begin this month. Demolition of the first compounds will begin on 28 May, and all refugees and asylum seekers will be removed by 31 October.
The Guardian revealed on Wednesday that Broadspectrum and Wilson Security have waged a year-long campaign to make the detention centre more inhospitable, in an effort to coerce people to progress through the assessment and resettlement processes and leave the centre, despite acknowledging they would face danger outside.
The four and a half years of the Manus detention centre’s second iteration have been marked by violence, including one asylum seeker being murdered by guards, several deaths, including two because of alleged medical neglect, and regular protests, violent outbreaks and clashes, such as the rampage on Good Friday during which “drunken soldiers”, according to police, opened fire on the detention centre.
Manus Island’s notorious Chauka confinement section, a series of shipping containers arranged as an isolation unit about 400 metres from the rest of the detention centre, has been closed after consistent reports of violence and inhumane treatment. But newly revealed documents shed light on the treatment of the refugees who were forcibly taken there, and detail injuries suffered.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
