16 Apr 2018

Bangladeshi asylum seeker medivacced from Nauru

11:43 am on 16 April 2018

A Bangladeshi asylum seeker has been medivacced to Australia, after being badly injured in a traffic accident on Nauru last week.

The man was a passenger on a motorcycle when it was hit by a car around on Wednesday afternoon.

Injured Bangladeshi asylum seeker is hospitalised

Injured Bangladeshi asylum seeker is hospitalised Photo: Supplied / Refugee Action Coalition

The Refugee Action Coaliton said the man was admitted to the Nauru hospital with severe leg injuries and he lost a lot of blood.

The following day he was transferred to the health clinic in the processing centre.

The precise reason for the emergency medivac is not known, but the man was unconscious when he was taken on Saturday evening.

The emergency evacuation came hours after Australian Immigration Department representatives were summoned to an emergency court hearing in Melbourne.

The lawyers, on behalf of immigration Minister Peter Dutton, then gave an undertaking to the Federal court that a mentally-ill girl and her family would be brought from Nauru to Australia for medical assistance.

The Refugee Action Coalition said in their own way, each of the cases, highlights why asylum seekers should never have been sent to Nauru.

Spokesman Ian Rintoul said there is an epidemic of mental illness on Nauru and mediacal facilities are woefully inadequate.

He has repeated his call that Nauru, and the Manus Island centre on Papua New Guinea should be immediately closed, and asylum seekers and refugees brought to Australia.

Protestors outside parliament in Wellington call for the closure of Australia's asylum seeker camps

Protestors outside parliament in Wellington call for the closure of Australia's asylum seeker camps Photo: RNZI/ Sally Round

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