Papua New Guinea authorities have given refugees on Manus Island one week to make arrangements to send the body of 33 year-old Pakistan refugee Kamil Hussain, back to Pakistan.
Hundreds gather for memorial service for Pakistani refugee who drowned. Photo: Refugee Action Coalition
This comes after PNG Immigration earlier announced that Mr Hussain would be buried today on Manus rather than his body being sent to his family in Pakistan.
PNG authorities have relented but say neither they nor Australian immigration and Broadspectrum would take any responsibility for repatriating the man's body.
The Pakistanis have been told they are on their own.
Hundreds gather for memorial service for Pakistani refugee who drowned. Photo: Refugee Action Coalition
But the Refugee Action Coalition's Ian Rintoul says they have been set an impossible task.
He says the Australian government needs to urgently step in.
Mr Rintoul says Australia has a duty of care to Mr Hussain and to the refugees in detention.
It has emerged that the dead man was also one of the people arrested and kept in Lorengau prison during the mass hunger strike on Manus in February 2015.