Asylum seekers on hunger strike over Nauru

An Afghan asylum seeker, Imayat Ali, told The Sunday Age by phone late on Friday that 238 people, including about 40 women and children, from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Sri Lanka had been told they would be sent to Nauru ”and if we refuse … we would be deported to our home countries. So we’ve been doing hunger strike,” he said.

Mr Ali, 55, said he arrived via boat from Indonesia on August 14 and had been on hunger strike since the 16th. It was unclear how many of the asylum seekers were refusing food.

”We don’t want to go [to Nauru] because we don’t want to be like others before us who went to Nauru but whose case were not quickly handled and they have to stay there for six to eight years so they became mad,” Mr Ali said. ”They became mentally ill. We don’t want that. The Australian government said that UNHCR will help us with processing our claim but all the works will be done in Nauru island.

”We don’t want that. We want the processing works to be done here in Christmas Island.

”I hope you can help us by telling the Australian government that we don’t want to go to Nauru island.”

A spokesman for the Department of Immigration said some detainees had skipped meals but would not confirm if a large-scale hunger strike was under way. ”Nothing that any of the detainee clients do will influence the path that we are now on to arranging their transfer to Nauru for processing,” he said.

Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said ”Labor’s new Pacific Solution is already turning refugees to experience high anxiety and self-harm. It is understandable why people are terrified by the prospect of being dumped indefinitely in detention on Nauru.”