Britain’s plan to send migrants and asylum seekers to Rwanda has left survivors of a similar scheme in Australia wondering why the “failed” policy that shattered their lives is being revived elsewhere.
For more than six years, Sudan-born refugee Abdul Aziz Muhamat was detained by Australian authorities in a small tropical island camp off Papua New Guinea’s mainland, hidden from full legal and public oversight.
“The simplest way to describe daily life on Manus Island is there’s no life,” Muhamat explained. “It’s worse than a prison. If you cry, no one will listen. If you shout, no one will come.”
Muhamat’s detention
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry wrote to the leaders of the Liberal Party of Australia, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Australian Greens Party, as well as candidates for the seats of Wentworth, Goldstein, Macnamara and Kingsford-Smith, ahead of the upcoming federal election seeking their positions on policies and issues of particular interest…