Six Iraqi women to be among Nauru refugees

3.20pm


UPDATED REPORT - New Zealand would take another 20 asylum seekers being detained on Nauru, including six Iraqi women who might later be joined here by their husbands, Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel said today.

Prime Minister Helen Clark today said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had asked New Zealand to take another 20 refugees from Nauru and the Government had agreed.

Ms Dalziel said the group would be counted as part of the existing refugee quota of 750 refugees a year.

More than 280 illegal immigrants are being held on the tiny island of Nauru under an arrangement with Australia, which pays Nauru millions of dollars to keep them there.

The refugees fled Afghanistan in 2001 and were rescued by the Norwegian freighter Tampa.

The Australian government would not accept them on its shores and directed them to Nauru.

About 40 of them earlier this month ended a hunger strike staged in protest against their continued detention.

Ms Dalziel said the Government's decision preceded the highly publicised hunger strike on Nauru and was in no way in response to the strikers' demands.

The decision had been made to take the 20 refugees -- a group of nine adults and 11 children -- because the Government wanted to contribute constructively to resolving resettlement in the region.

"The UNHCR considered this group to be particularly vulnerable and in need of permanent protection. None had been involved in the hunger strike," Ms Dalziel said.

The group would initially be resettled at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre in Auckland from early this year.

Miss Clark today told Newstalk ZB that New Zealand had been working with the UNHCR and the International Organisation of Migration, which looked after the people on Nauru.

She said the plight of the refugees was very miserable.

The Tampa had been off the Australian coast early in September 2001 and the refugees would have been transferred to Nauru somewhere around October that year, so they had been there for around 2-1/4 years.

"We are taking 20 in response to UNHCR requests at this point and as we have indicated in the past, if they come through with requests which we think hold water, we will look at them very seriously," Miss Clark said.

Ms Dalziel said the UNHCR and the Australian Government were reassessing claims of some of the Afghan asylum seekers remaining on Nauru.

"If some of these are subsequently found to be refugees, it is possible New Zealand may be asked to accept further cases. This would be a different situation to the humanitarian cases we have just accepted. However, we would consider such a request on its merits if it might further help resolve the situation on Nauru," the minister said.

Green MP Keith Locke said New Zealanders should "open their hearts" to more refugees.

It was wonderful that New Zealand had agreed to accept 20 refugees from Nauru.

"But there is certainly room for us to take more," Mr Locke said.

Of the mainly Afghan asylum seekers on Nauru, 93 were children and 35 unaccompanied minors.

"New Zealand should show its compassion by offering them a better life. At the same time, we should be doing all we can to shame the Australian Government into taking responsibility for its own lack of humanity in creating a virtual Pacific gulag."

- NZPA