Refugees on PNG's Manus Island 'feel abandoned'

Transcript

JOYCE CHIA: Every day, this morning, we hear more instances of self-harm. And I think people, perhaps not surprisingly, after five years of detention and prolonged limbo are really starting to lose hope and really starting to feel forgotten and abandoned and absolutely we're at a very critical point. I think we've been at a critical point for a long time, but in the last few months we've certainly heard more and more people losing hope and more and more suicide attempts.

TIM GLASGOW: But why is particularly bad over there now, do you think?

JC: It's been just over a year since they closed the centre and I think what has happened since then is their sense of hope has diminished, we've heard a lot more rejections recently from the US resettlement deal, and [they are] certainly hearing about rejections in Nauru as well. So it's taken a very, very long time for the men on Manus. The number of rejections for the men on Mauns is very small because the decisions haven't been made. But they do feel that once the centre closed the Australian government washed their hand of responsibility so they don't have any interaction really with Australian service providers anymore and they increasingly have to navigate their own ways through a very difficult heath systems and they don't have interpreters. And they have to pay for some of their own medical care, and they really are abandoned in many ways. And I think that abandonment and that sense of loss of future is really tipping them over the edge. i mean a really alarming thing is that they've actually halved the number of mental health support workers since January this year despite the mental health crisis that's happening on Manus Island and they've cut all the torture and trauma counselling they've been receiving. So for many men they're really receiving no mental health support any more and that's really contributed to the sense of crisis on Manus Island and the men who are trying to support them - the brave men who we spoke to who are their fierce advocates who have been trying to support them are in the same position. So they're getting extremely worn down and extremely tired. 

TG: So there's a sense over there that they really have been forgotten about?

JC: The media in Australia have been complicit, I would say in the forgetting of the men on Manus Island, it's not for lack of trying by advocates in Australia but there's a sense of 'we'd rather not talk about it. Unless men are dying in much more awful ways than they are now, we're not interested'. And I think that's very difficult for the men on Manus. I think they're very supportive of what's happening for the people of Nauru, but they're feeling increasingly neglected by the media and the community. And they are absolutely aware that there is very little media coverage of the men an on Manus. And they have repeatedly said to us, why aren't we talking about what's happening to them more.