About 50 asylum seekers departed an Australian-run detention camp in Papua New Guinea (PNG) on Thursday after police moved into the complex, confiscating food, water and personal belongings from the roughly 310 who remained.
The Manus Island centre was sealed off after a three-week standoff the United Nations has called a “looming humanitarian crisis” as detainees defied attempts by Australia and Papua New Guinea to close it.
“Right now we have no water,” one of the asylum-seekers in the camp said in a mobile telephone message. “I came back to my room and they took my laptop and money and cigarettes.”
Video images shot and posted on social media site Facebook by Sudanese refugee Abdul Aziz showed police using a megaphone to tell asylum seekers to leave because their stay at the camp, located on land used by the PNG navy, was illegal.
Men boarded buses in footage he posted later on social network Twitter. The buses took the men to alternative accommodation, three sources said.
In Geneva, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said it had received reports of force being used to remove the refugees and asylum seekers and called for calm.
