Papua New Guinean immigration officials and police have started destroying makeshift shelters built by about 600 refugees and asylum seekers who refuse to relocate from the now closed Manus Island detention centre.
The initial efforts to dismantle the camp started on Friday, a day before a slated deadline for forcible removal that Prime Minister Peter O’Neill warned of on Thursday.
Iranian refugee and journalist Behrouz Boochani said: “Police and immigration destroyed our shelters. Inside the rooms is very hot with power for fans. We built these shelters to provide shade and cover from tropical sun and rain.”
Boochani told the Guardian the officials pulled down shelters in Oscar camp and then left, before returning to destroy the same facilities in Delta compound. They also destroyed the rubbish bins that were used to store water. The raids passed without violence, he said.
Thunderstorms are predicted for Manus Island with the temperature hitting 30C and high humidity.
Almost 60 refugees and asylum seekers had already voluntarily boarded buses and trucks to be taken to new accommodation on Friday as a result of the operation, said Police Chief Superintendent Dominic Kakas.
“Police and military personnel from the naval base... are at the centre facilitating the smooth and orderly movement of refugees to their new location. Progress of the relocation is going well and smoothly,” he said.
Manus province police commander David Yapu said the relocation of refugees and asylum seekers would be “conducted smoothly and orderly without use of force”.
On Thursday, PNG immigration officials told the 600 refugees and asylum seekers still refusing to leave the camp that they had two days to accede to leaving, before facing before forcibly removed. Many on the island expect police – including the notorious PNG police mobile squad – to move in sometime on Saturday.
In Australia, immigration minister Peter Dutton accused the refugees and asylum seekers of destroying their own accommodation to make conditions look as bad as possible. “They have trashed the accommodation ... the conditions we see in the photographs today do not resemble at all the conditions in which people have been living over a long period of time.
“This is like having a tenant in a ... house and asking them to move in six months’ time into a new house. We cut off water, power to the old house and we are paying for your to go to the new house. We will give you meals, with all of the security and medical needs you could need and people say ‘no, I will not leave the old house, I am going to stay here’. And trashed the place and then put images out of that.”
Australia’s department of immigration has said that the men who are refusing to leave the detention centre were doing so voluntarily. “We categorically reject all claims that this represents a ‘humanitarian emergency’ as has been alleged in some quarters. Refugees and failed asylum seekers staying at the RPC [regional processing centre] site are making an informed choice to do so, and have been provided with information and assurances from the PNG government that facilities are ready and waiting at alternative locations.”
The 600 men refusing to leave and settle in new accommodation in the Manus community say they are not safe in the local community. Independent observers say the proposed new housing is inadequate and unfinished.
New footage showing the cramped and unhygienic conditions inside the detention centre has emerged. The United Nations high commissioner for refugees has described the situation there as a “humanitarian emergency”.
The footage was filmed by Australian non-government organisation GetUp! and shows men sleeping outside on tables to escape the heat inside. It also shows a lack of basic sanitation including running water or washing facilities and how the men have uilt wells to stay hydrated.
It has been nine days since the the Australian government cut off the food, water, medical assistance and electricity to the refugees at the centre.
GetUp spent eight hours in the camp after being smuggled in under the cover of darkness by Manus Islanders.
GetUp’s human rights co-director, Shen Narayanasamy, who spent time inside the now-closed detention centre, said death or serious illness was inevitable in coming days.
“The conditions are appalling and it’s obvious you wouldn’t choose to stay here if you thought you could be safer elsewhere.
“There is a great threat of violence from the PNG army, and the Manus island community has made it very clear it doesn’t want the men to move into accommodation closer to town.”