Refugee Rights Action Network WA
A man in Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) has lied on the dirt floor curled up in a ball clutching at the wire fence. He spent a full night in the cold lying by the fence clutching the wire and refused food and water. One of the teenage boys put a blanket on him and guards supervised him to ensure he did not self-harm.
The man has said “I am animal – they treat me like animal so I am animal.”
He has been recognised and accepted as a refugee, five months ago but is awaiting his security check. Part of the process that should take mere months but which takes often years.
His father has died recently in his home country and is believed to have contributed to his distress.
Yesterday he was visited once again by his DIAC case manager who told him yet again that he has no information and that he must be “patient”.
So 24 hours later he lies shivering and dehydrated in the dirt, unable to think of anything but holding on to the wire fence and waiting until at 8pm reason and compassion intervened and he was finally transferred to a hospital.
Refugee advocate Pamela Curr sates that this “problem remains as thousands of people rot in detention waiting for decisions which could be made in months but instead take years.
This is the 20th Anniversary of Mandatory Detention. How much longer will our government continue this cruel expensive system?”
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