Charity offices raided again

YAREN – The offices of charity Save the Children have been raided again by police in Nauru.

Computers and other internet-connected devices were seized by local authorities yesterday morning.

It is the second raid on the aid and development agency in two weeks, and frontline workers in the island’s family camp may now be left without computers or phones.

Save the Children staff were searched and a number of electronic items were confiscated by Nauruan police earlier this month.

One staff member confirmed that several Australian Border Force officers were present in the earlier raid, but an Immigration Department spokesman said Australian authorities played no part.

The ABC has been told the raids were in response to a recent report in Guardian Australia that angered the government of Nauru.

The story published part of a leaked email from the detention centre’s operations manager, who advised her colleagues that local media would be allowed to photograph and film inside the camps.

A spokeswoman for Save the Children said an internal audit had found “no evidence the leaked email, which is understood to be the target of the warrants, came from our staff”.

“We continue to provide around-the-clock support to children and their families whose care has been entrusted to us,” the spokeswoman said.

“This is of course made harder by these kinds of disruptions.”

Save the Children’s contract for health provision services is set to expire at the end of this month.

- ABC