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| Australia asylum: One killed in riot at PNG camp | Australia asylum: One killed in riot at PNG camp |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| One asylum seeker has been killed and 77 injured during a second night of rioting at Australia's immigrant detention centre in Papua New Guinea. | One asylum seeker has been killed and 77 injured during a second night of rioting at Australia's immigrant detention centre in Papua New Guinea. |
| Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said the news of a death at the Manus Island was "a great tragedy". | Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said the news of a death at the Manus Island was "a great tragedy". |
| The rioting comes after some of the detainees briefly escaped from the detention centre on Sunday. | The rioting comes after some of the detainees briefly escaped from the detention centre on Sunday. |
| Manus Island hosts one of Australia's offshore processing camps for asylum seekers. | Manus Island hosts one of Australia's offshore processing camps for asylum seekers. |
| Asylum is a sensitive issue in Australia, despite the relatively small numbers involved. | |
| UNHCR's Asylum Trends 2012 report said Australia received only 3% of global asylum applications in 2012. | |
| 'Heightened tensions' | |
| "This is a tragedy but this was a very dangerous situation where people decided to protest in a very violent way and to take themselves outside the centre and place themselves at great risk," Mr Morrison was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. | |
| The minister said that one of those injured was in a critical condition with a scull fracture and another 22 were currently being treated. | |
| Conditions in the remote Pacific camp, and in another centre on Nauru, have been the subject of stringent criticism from both UN agencies and human rights groups. | |
| The death came after "much-heightened" tensions at the detention centre, as detainees "became agitated" after they were told would be resettled in PNG and "a third-country option will not be offered", Mr Morrison said earlier. | |
| Non-essential staff were evacuated as detainees knocked down fences and smashed glass panels and bunk beds on Sunday. | |
| The escaped asylum seekers were "quickly located", the minister added. | |
| 'Left in limbo' | |
| The previous Labor government decided to re-establish offshore processing camps on Nauru and Manus Island in 2012, after ending the policy - known as the Pacific Solution - in 2008. | |
| It also said that people found to be refugees would be settled in Papua New Guinea, not Australia, a policy the current Liberal-National government has agreed to uphold. | |
| However, the details of the agreement between Australia and PNG are still to be confirmed. | |
| Last week, PNG Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato said that the government would appoint a group of "eminent Papua New Guineans" and seek expertise from the UN and Australia to determine "whether those asylum seekers will or will not be settled in PNG". |