UNHCR denounces PNG police removal of refugees from Manus Island camp

The UN refugee agency UNHCR has decried the use of force by Papua New Guinean police to remove refugees and asylum seekers from a center on Manus Island. Police cleared the remaining asylum seekers from the shuttered, Australian-run detention complex on Friday, ending a three-week protest that had started with some 600 people surviving on rain water and smuggled food and supplies. “The beating of refugees and asylum seekers by uniformed officers with metal poles… is both shocking and inexcusable,” UNHCR said on Friday, as cited by Reuters. Several refugees were “severely injured” and needed medical treatment, the agency said, calling for the refugees to be protected.