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The Australian immigration department has been desperately trying to repatriate traumatized Syrians seeking asylum in Australia detained in offshore detention centers, British daily the Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Several emails it obtained under Australia’s freedom of information laws suggested that the Syrians detained had told immigration officials that they will be killed if they go back to Syria, but the department made plans for their repatriation nonetheless. They went as far as sharing identity documents of the asylum seekers with the Syrian consulate in the country, booking flights via Jordan and trying to issue an “ultimatum” to force them back despite several people being mentally ill.
The Guardian also reported that in any of the emails the conflict in Syria and the safety of the asylum seekers was not discussed. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which has been assigned the task of returning the facilitating asylum-seekers in the offshore detention, does not recommend repatriation to Syria since it is too dangerous.
Several human rights experts have blasted Australia’s actions, saying that they were doing the “unthinkable” by trying to send the Syrians back.
Human Rights Watch’s Australia Director Elaine Pearson said, “While Syrian authorities are committing crimes against humanity including systematic killings and torture, Australia is doing the unthinkable – trying to send Syrians back home”.
“Even worse – authorities are actively sharing information with Syrian authorities in order to obtain travel documents which is likely to further endanger their lives.Australia’s obligations under the refugee convention are to protect those fleeing persecution, not send people back to be slaughtered. Given the IOM isn’t even entertaining the idea of voluntary returns to Syria, Australia shouldn’t either”, Pearson added.
Director of advocacy at Humanitarian Research Partners Ben Pynt, who had lodged the FOI request, said that any Syrian returning will face certain harm.
“There isn’t a ‘mere likelihood’ that these people will be persecuted on returning to Syria. It isn’t even a ’50/50 chance’. There is an absolute certainty that these people will be harmed or killed upon their return, and the government’s reaction is to push them to go home without even listening to their claims for asylum”, Pynt said.