Australia to Quarantine Evacuees From China on Remote Island
Australia to Quarantine Evacuees From China on Remote Island
(Bloomberg) -- Australia will evacuate some of its 600 citizens stranded in China’s coronavirus-stricken Hubei province and quarantine them on an island with a grim history of detaining asylum-seekers.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Wednesday his government is in talks with Chinese authorities to evacuate “isolated and vulnerable” Australians and New Zealanders, such as the young and elderly, from the province. Canberra is also in discussions with Qantas Airways Ltd. to arrange flights that will take them to the Australian-administered island off the country’s northwest coast for as long as two weeks.
As part of Australia’s policy to deter asylum seekers, from 2001 until 2018 Christmas Island was used as a detention center for people arriving from nations such as Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka without visas; they were denied permission to apply for refugee status and urged to return to their homelands.
Briefly closed, the detention center was reopened by Morrison last year; it currently holds a Sri Lankan couple and their two Australian-born children.
A Qantas spokesman said on Wednesday that the airline was working with the government to bring the Australians back from Wuhan. The airline’s Boeing Co. 747 aircraft would not be able to land at Christmas Island so arrangements were still being finalized, the spokesman said.
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s China-based reporter Bill Birtles, not all Chinese-born Australians are embracing the government’s plan, tweeting that there was “a lot of concern” about medical facilities on the island and conditions for children.
--With assistance from Angus Whitley.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Scott in Canberra at jscott14@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Karen Leigh
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.