UNITED NATIONS: UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has called upon Australia to end its off-shore processing policy on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Papua New Guinea amid reports of widespread, acute mental distress and attempted suicide by children and young adults.

“In one of the various cases brought to our attention during September, a suicidal pre-teenage girl remains in Nauru despite doctors’ advice to the contrary,” UNHCR spokesperson Catherine Stubberfield told journalists in Geneva.

“Medical records seen by UNHCR staff show she first doused herself in petrol, before attempting to set herself alight and pulling chunks of hair from her head.”

According to UNHCR, more than 1,400 people are still being held on both islands, which have hosted Australia-bound migrants and asylum-seekers forcibly transferred there, since 2013.

There’s no longer time for the Government of Australia to delay or find other solutions, and it’s for that reason that we’re asking people be evacuated today.

The UN agency’s appeal to the Australian authorities echoes a warning from non-governmental organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) which pulled out of Nauru last week, at the request of the island’s authorities.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2018