A transcript of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s January phone call with US President Donald Trump regarding the US resettlement deal for refugees on Manus Island and Nauru was leaked to the media this week. During the conversation, Turnbull told Trump that those detained were ‘economic refugees’ and assured him that his only obligation was to ‘go through the process’ of vetting the asylum seekers for resettlement.
Over 700 asylum seekers on Manus Island are continuing to protest after water and medical services were taken away from the detention centre in an attempt to force the remaining residents to move to the new camp of Lorengau. On Friday, protesters refused access to police and immigration officials attempting to move them on. They maintain that Lorengau is unsafe.