Detainees’ homes yet to be found

PRIME Minister Peter O’Neill says the Manus regional processing centre will be closed and a decision has to be made on where to send the 900 refugees there.
The problem with that is some refugees have lost their identification papers and are refusing to say their countries or origin.
O’Neill told Parliament yesterday that the alternative was to send them to another country because they refused to be resettled in PNG and Australia would not accept them.
“I met with Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton (on Wednesday in Port Moresby) and advised him that the Supreme Court’s decision is final and we have no option but to close it down,” he said.
“There are about 900 asylum seekers and 600 are genuine refugees from conflict countries and wanting to seek better life elsewhere. The rest are not genuine refugees. Some are economic migrants and they need to return to their origin country.
“Many of the refuges have lost their identification documents and refuse to say which country they are from. To return to their country is hard.”
O’Neill said all the refugees in Manus did not want to resettle in PNG.
“We have trialed it out with 18 refugees. Some are in Port Moresby and Lae trying to seek employment. But they don’t have professional qualifications and cannot speak English,” he said.
“So they don’t want to resettle in PNG. We are now working with Australian officials to resettle them in a third country or return to their country of origin.”