Pacific

Concern for asylum seekers in PNG as controversial guards return

17:56 pm on 11 March 2014

Australia's asylum-seekers in the Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea are at risk of facing the same people who attacked them last month.

The spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, Ian Rintoul, says the G4S security guards and PNG police have been excluded from the compounds since February the 17th, when they killed Iranian Reza Berati and bashed 77 others.

But he says there are moves by management to re-introduce them as early as today.

Mr Rintoul says the asylum-seekers now have a letter instructing those not involved in a riot how to act if the compound is stormed again.

He says this is absurd and shows the Australian immigration department is incompetent.

"It is the most absurd nonsense imaginable. To tell someone to sit on the ground and put your hands on your head so the G4S can take you to safety is tantamount to saying sit down and put your hands on your head and you'll be a passive and defenceless victim for the people who used rocks and poles and knives to cut throats and bash people two weeks ago."

Ian Rintoul.