Manus refugee issue

WE learnt from The Fiji Times, May 3, article that PNG is doing ‘all it can to help refugees’ that after visiting Manus Island in January.
F Giorgio Licini, the general secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Peter O’Neill highlighting the dire situation of refugees detained on Manus Island.
He informed the PM that refugees would die unless they were taken out of PNG for medical treatment and called for immediate action.
Fr Licini told RNZ Pacific that self-harm and suicide attempts were a daily occurrence.
Responding after a lapse of three months O’Neill said in his letter: “Our government continues to work with the Australian government to find long term solutions for those asylum seekers…We continue to do everything we can in partnership with Australian officials and contracted service providers, to ensure that the health and welfare needs of asylum seekers are addressed as compassionately as possible”.
Wonder what that amounts to for the refugees and asylum seekers who are meantime left to languish in limbo on Australia’s off-shore detention centre on Manus Island?

Rajend Naidu
Sydney