Australia keeping refugees in ‘unacceptable’ circumstances: UNCHR

The United Nations refugee agency slams Australia for keeping thousands of refugees “unacceptable” conditions, saying the Canberra government has backtracked on an agreement to relax its tough stance on asylum seekers.

“Four years on, more than 2,000 people are still languishing in unacceptable circumstances. Families have been separated and many have suffered physical and psychological harm,” the UNHCR stated on its website on Monday.

Australia takes a hard line on refugees, with those intercepted at sea sent for processing at camps on the tiny South Pacific island of Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island and told they will never be settled in Australia.

UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi said Canberra had reneged on an agreement to take in some vulnerable asylum seekers who were being held in the offshore detention centers.

Canberra, however, denied that such an agreement existed.

The UNHCR chief said Australia had agreed to settle some of those held on offshore camps in exchange for the agency to help facilitate a swap deal with the United States.

“We agreed to do so on the clear understanding that vulnerable refugees with close family ties in Australia would ultimately be allowed to settle there,” Grandi said in a statement, adding, however, that the “UNHCR has recently been informed by Australia that it refuses to accept even these refugees.”

The swap deal, which involves the United States taking refugees from the offshore centers while Australia accepts refugees from Central America, is designed in part to help Australia empty the offshore facilities that have been heavily criticized by the UN and human rights agencies for dire living conditions.

US President Donald Trump is said to be opposed to the deal.

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