PAPUA NEW GUINEA – Asylum seekers at Australia’s offshore detention centre on Manus Island are begging for help as Papua New Guinean and Australian authorities prepare to deport them.

The forced removal of detainees was to be debated in the Senate yesterday, as some asylum seekers on Manus Island say PNG’s immigration service told them they could be flown to their countries of origin in the coming days.

On February 9, the first deportee, a Nepalese man, was removed from the centre and flown to Nepal.

Vietnamese asylum seeker Son Pham is one of those who has been told he will soon be sent back.

“I’m very scared now, I don’t know what will happen to me in the next few days,” he said. “If they deport me, who is responsible if the police arrest me and kill me in prison?”

Another man, Bangladeshi asylum seeker Sohag Howlader said: “Australian people please help me. Please help every refugee here. Please help.”

PNG’s immigration service would not confirm how many others were facing imminent deportation, saying that was “sensitive operational information”, but sources told the ABC about 60 men from countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Lebanon and Nepal were in line for removal.

The United Nations Refugee Agency said no deportations should be taking place, because there were concerns about the way people’s refugee claims have been rejected.

Asylum seekers on the island have provided dozens of examples of mistakes, inconsistencies and perverse decisions.

A Rohingya asylum seeker from Myanmar, who asked to remain anonymous, said there had been no response to their complaints and no hope of redress.

“What I presently feel right now is they are just abusing the power, whatever they’ve got in their hands, because there is no-one to oversee the process, no fairness that you can get to lodge a complaint that my assessment process has been unfair,” he said.

PNG’s immigration service has issued a removal notice to high-profile asylum seeker Benham Satah, an Iranian Kurd who is a community leader inside the detention centre.

Satah was recognised as a vulnerable witness by PNG’s National Court after he received death threats for testifying in the trial of the men who killed Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati.

Satah stopped participating in the refugee determination process for fear that if recognised as a refugee he would be killed if he was released into the general community.

“I witnessed my roommate’s murder and I testified in court and because of that I found many, many enemies inside security, inside the island, local people, the friends and relatives of those who are in jail at the moment, so how can I live here?” he said.

The Australian Government, in a submission to the High Court, said Satah was not likely to be deported anytime soon, because Iran does not accept the involuntary return of its citizens.

But there has been no offer for him to be reassessed for refugee status so he would be eligible for US resettlement, and he still faces the prospect of remaining on Manus Island indefinitely.

The deportations come as contractors working on behalf of the United States government reportedly are set to begin pre-screening refugees on Manus Island for resettlement in the US.

Some refugees in the centre said they had been offered interviews with the contractors this week.

Australia’s Greens senator Nick McKim was to move a motion in the Senate yesterday, noting the removals “may violate international law” as the UNHCR had suggested PNG’s status determination process did not comply with the Refugee Convention. - ABC