A 14-year-old refugee girl who had attempted suicide on Nauru by trying to set herself on fire is to be moved to Australia within days — the eighth child moved from the island following a court order, or the threat of legal action.
The Australian Border Force had rejected recommendations from doctors to immediately move the girl to an Australian hospital for acute psychiatric treatment that is not available on Nauru.
An urgent application, brought by the National Justice Project, to have the girl moved was set to be heard in the federal court on Friday morning in Sydney, but, just as proceedings commenced, the Australian government agreed to move her and her family to Australia.
Some details of the circumstances cannot be reported, but sources on Nauru said that the girl from Iran has been held on Nauru for nearly five years with her family, that the family members have been recognized as refugees and that Australia is legally obliged to protect them.
Repeated and escalating concerns had been brought up by doctors about the girl’s mental health, which has deteriorated dangerously in recent months.
In a recent suicide attempt, the girl doused herself in gasoline and attempted to set herself alight.
She was rescued before she was able to seriously harm herself, the sources said.
Two years ago, Iranian asylum seeker Omid Masoumali self-immolated in a public clearing in Nauru after dousing himself in gasoline. He died several days later in a Brisbane hospital after his flight off Nauru to a tertiary hospital was delayed several hours.
The 14-year-old girl is the eighth child to be moved from Nauru after a court order, or the commencement of legal action in the federal court.
She is the third case this week, after a two-year-old girl who had suffered encephalitis was ordered to Australia after first having been taken from Nauru to Papua New Guinea in defiance of the orders of doctors — who recommended that she be transferred to Australia — and despite the Port Moresby hospital to which she was sent saying that it did not have the equipment to adequately treat her.
The two-year-old girl and her family have since been moved to Australia.
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