Pregnant refugees from Nauru protesting on bus near Darwin detention centre, group says
Two pregnant women brought from Nauru to Darwin to give birth are refusing to get off a bus with their families near the Wickham Point Detention Centre, asylum seeker advocates say.
Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said the families were from Iran and had spent 15 months in detention on Nauru.
They were among a group found to be refugees and resettled within Nauruan communities earlier this year, he said.
He said the women had been brought to Australia yesterday to give birth.
They had been assured they would not be placed in detention while in Darwin, he said.
“When they arrived in Australia, they were told they would be taken to the detention centre and put on a bus to take them to Wickham Point,” he said.
They arrived at the centre and began their protest before midnight last night, he said.
“The women are both around eight months pregnant,” he said.
The 10-year-old son of one of the women and both women’s husbands were on the bus, he said.
Mr Rintoul said he had spoken with a brother in law of one of the women, who was in Australia, as well as friends of the families on Nauru.
He said pregnant asylum seekers were often transferred from Nauru to Wickham Point to give birth, but this was the first time the policy had been applied to refugees living outside of detention.
The ABC has contacted the Department of Immigration and Border Protection for comment.
Source: ABC news.
Related: Manifesto for a pogrom: hostility to resettled refugees grows on Nauru
