A Further 10 Refugees Arrive in Australia from Manus
Media Release - DPS 91/2002
The Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs has confirmed that a further 10 refugees from the immigration processing centre on Manus have arrived in Australia.
The arrivals are in line with the Australian Government's commitment to take its fair share of people who are residing in the offshore processing centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea and who are found to be refugees.
Eight of the group (four men, four women) arrived in Australia on Monday 18 November while the remaining two refugees (one man, one woman) arrived last night.
The 10 refugees are all Iraqi nationals and have close family links in Australia. All members of the group will live with family already residing in Australia - three people will live with family in New South Wales, four will reside in Victoria and three have joined family in Western Australia.
"The resettlement of further refugees from the offshore processing centres is under consideration by the Department and other countries," a departmental spokesperson said.
"These arrivals bring to 312 the number of people who have been transferred to Australia from the offshore processing centres - 120 from Manus and 192 from Nauru."
A number of countries have indicated a willingness to consider cases for resettlement. New Zealand has already resettled 202 people from Nauru and Papua New Guinea and 14 people from Nauru have been resettled in Sweden.
Further movements to Australia and other countries are expected over the coming months.
All of the refugees who arrived in the past fortnight have been granted secondary movement visas.
"These visas are available to people who have abandoned or by-passed effective protection in a country of first asylum and travelled to another country to seek a preferred migration option," the spokesperson said.
There are now 810 people remaining in offshore processing centres, comprising 719 on Nauru and 91 on Manus.
29 November 2002
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