Refugees and asylum seekers held on Nauru claim they can’t afford to eat and are forced to skip meals. Their plight comes despite Australia spending $1.5m per person for a US prisons operator to house them, although the contract does not provide food.
One asylum seeker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, claimed he often skipped meals to make his fortnightly stipend of $230 from Australia’s home affairs department last.
“We didn’t know coming to Australia was a crime. We are being killed every day from lack of access to food,” they said.
“We only can plead with the Australian government and people to please remove us from this place as soon as possible. We are unable to survive.”
Another asylum seeker claimed he didn’t buy vegetables and fruit because the cost is so high on the tiny Pacific island – which imports most of its produce.
“My health is not good … every day I feel I’m dying … most of the time I think my life has no meaning,” they said.
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The US operator, MTC Australia, began its new $364m contract extension to provide “facilities, garrison, and reception services” on Wednesday. It brings the company’s earnings from running Australia’s sole remaining offshore processing regime to $786m. The contract does not cover the provision of food or work.
MTC Australia is a subsidiary of the Management and Training Corporation, one of the largest for-profit prisons operators in the US.
Currently, 105 asylum seekers and refugees are held on the island. All are men. Of those, 90 are housed in the Nauru community, while 15 are in the regional processing centre.
Australia currently pays $1.5m a year for every person held offshore.
A third asylum seeker, also speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed he had been assaulted three times at work, and was forced to quit his job. Despite the $230 a fortnight stipend, he said he often went hungry.
“$230 a fortnight is not enough to survive. I can’t work any more because I got assaulted at work. If I could work, I’d be able to afford more food. I’m eating less.”
The man alleged Nauru police did not help him when he was repeatedly struck in the head and back.
“The [perpetrators] … just kept hitting me, they said ‘you can even call the police but we’ll keep hitting you’. The problem is that if you defend yourself, you’ll end up in jail.”
The asylum seeker – who arrived by boat in Australia and whose claim for protection is still being processed – said he made a formal complaint to Nauru authorities about his alleged mistreatment.
“Coming from another country to Nauru without safety, work and food is punishing,” he said.
“I spoke with authorities, all they said was they can return me to my country. I left my country for protection. I can’t go back to my country or I could be killed. But it’s similarly unsafe here in Nauru. They don’t care about refugees at all. It’s a hopeless situation.”
It is not alleged that MTC was involved in the man’s assault.
Guardian Australia contacted the home affairs department and MTC for a response to the comments. MTC deferred to the department, which did not respond in time for publication.
MTC Australia’s parent company runs scores of for-profit prisons in the US and UK. A previous Guardian investigation reported historical allegations in civil suits of “gross negligence” and “egregious” security failures relating to two US facilities, and a US$5.2m (A$8m) settlement in 2019 over a Mississippi state government bribery scandal.
MTC Australia’s original contract in 2022 with the Australian government for Nauru services was for $47m over two months, but this has been repeatedly extended and expanded without competitive tender, or public or parliamentary scrutiny.
The latest two-year extension without prior public notification or scrutiny of the contract has raised allegations of “gross mismanagement” and a process “run out of control” from parliamentarians and government integrity experts.
Jana Favero, deputy chief executive of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, accused the government of “breathtaking negligence” in its secretive handling of offshore processing contracts over nearly two decades.
Favero said Australian taxpayers should be outraged that the vulnerable group are struggling with food security on Nauru.
“While the Albanese government recklessly spends hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in secret, with zero accountability or transparency, [the] people seeking asylum they have sent to Nauru are going hungry because their allowance is too small to buy enough food,” she said.
“Australians should be outraged at this disgraceful cruelty and waste.”
