An unaccompanied teenage girl is understood to have been sent to Nauru, while eight other asylum seekers have voluntarily left.
The girl arrived on the island on Wednesday, Australian time, and is believed to be between 15 and 16 years old.
She will bring the total of unaccompanied minors on the island to fourafter the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, confirmed last Friday there was an unaccompanied boy and two girls already on the island.
The children are not going to school and it is not known if they are part of an educational program being developed at the detention centre.
The girl’s arrival comes as eight asylum seekers reportedly voluntarily left the island to return to their country of origin after losing hope they would be settled in Australia.
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) did not confirm the arrival of the unaccompanied minor or the departure of the eight asylum seekers. Morrison’s practice is to release such information on a Friday at a press conference.
Campaign co-ordinator at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Pamela Curr, said Morrison was shirking his responsibility as legal guardian for unaccompanied minors seeking asylum.
“His responsible concern is supposed to be their welfare and protection,” she said. “He’s sending them offshore to a detention centre where they have no protection whatsoever.”
Curr said the girl would be housed in the family camp where there are a total of three tents, although it is understood the other three unaccompanied children are in solid accommodation, so the girl may be moved there.
She will get a four-minute shower each day, military packaged meals which she will have to line up for about two hours for, and the only available drinking water will be bottled.
“She’s a risk,” Curr said. “I would be absolutely petrified if she was my daughter.”theGuardian.co.uk
