There were 14 deaths recorded in the years I was on the island of Manus. I always see their faces – in particular my roommate, Reza Barati. He was murdered before my eyes when he was under the custody of the Australian government. (According to reports from eye witness, Barati was beaten to death by guards and other entrepreneurs.)
People died of avoidable deaths there. Everyone has suffered from mental or physical health problems. The only treatment we received was paracetamol and water. I remember Hamid (whose name was changed to protect his identity). He never received an appropriate treatment because there was no doctor in the medical center here. They amputated his two legs in the capital, Port Moresby. He died of septicemia.
But we have not only refused manus treatments, those responsible were also inexplicably reckless with vaccinations. I was an interpreter for a friend, FRT001, who came to the same boat as me. I saw him receive 60 vaccines in less than a month. We tried to stop them, but if you refused a vaccine, they would call the emergency intervention team. My friend was finally sent back to Iran where he died shortly after.
People self-immune to petrol in detention. We were beaten. Sometimes violence was extreme, and you could be attacked for no reason. When a pack of cigarettes can guarantee your safety, you understand how inexpensive human life is.
With offshore detention, the Australian government has paid in Nauru and Papua New Guinea to do its dirty job. There was no law there, and they could do what they wanted without fear of the courts. We have been refused access to lawyers. We were out of sight, out of mind – exactly as planned.
I tried to take my life several times on Manus, and the memories still give me nightmares. I lost almost seven years of my youth in detention. These are days that I will never come back. I still take a lot of tablets just to spend the day.
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