The wife of the 23-year-old Iranian refugee who died after setting himself alight in protest on Nauru has criticised delays in getting him off the island for medical care.
The death of the man, Omid, in a Brisbane hospital Friday afternoon, comes at the end of a tumultuous week which saw the potential collapse of Australia’s offshore processing regime, after Papua New Guinea announced it would close the Manus Island facility under orders from its supreme court.
On Nauru on Wednesday, during a visit by UN officials to the Nibok settlement where he lived with his wife, Omid set himself on fire, crying “this is how tired we are, this action will prove how exhausted we are. I cannot take it anymore”.
Onlookers smothered the flames, and Omid was taken to the Republic of Nauru hospital before being airlifted out almost a day later. He was treated at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s hospital but died on Friday.
Before he died, Omid’s wife told Guardian Australia she did not expect him to survive, and blamed Australian officials for what she saw as delays in getting him to hospital in Queensland.
Speaking through an interpreter, she said that once her husband was taken to the Nauru hospital it took two hours for a doctor from International Health and Medical Services to arrive and treat him, and he was unable to be given intravenous pain relief.
She said he was not given a sheet or a place to lie down, and that the hospital “didn’t even have a clean syringe”.
“Staff in Nauru hospital couldn’t help Omid in any way because they were unequipped,” she said. “A lack of proper equipment and facilities was the reason that staff couldn’t help and treat Omid in the Nauru hospital.”
She said Omid suffered a cardiac arrest during the night, and doctors performed emergency surgery with her consent. Upon arrival in Brisbane, she said doctors told her he was already brain dead.
The Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) confirmed Omid’s death, and said appropriate support was being provided to his wife and friends.
Omid’s wife was brought to Brisbane and waited in the hospital with him, under guard. Some friends had spoken to her, she said, attempting to offer comfort before she was soon stopped from speaking.
“Currently I am in isolation in way that I am not allowed to talk to anyone or do interviews,” she said.
“They have taken away my mobile phone so no one can contact me and I am being observed constantly by the officers that are accompanying me.”
Medical advocacy group Doctors for Refugees have criticised the length of time it took to get Omid out of Nauru and to superior medical care in Brisbane.
“The family in Nauru were told that DIBP was unable to arrange a pilot for the medivac,” co-founder Dr Barri Phatarfod told the Guardian.
“We understand a flight arrived at 6.30am, some 22 hours after the severe burns and leaving Omid susceptible to life threatening infection as well.”
“Coming so soon after ... revelations of DIBP delays in the tragic case of [Hamid] Kehazaei [who died of a preventable infection in Manus Island detention in 2014], it’s quite incredible that this should happen.”
The Australian immigration minister, Peter Dutton, said on Friday his advice was there was no delay in moving Omid.
“The advice that I’ve received is that there was no delay. Obviously people realise that Nauru is 4,500km or so away from Australia. There’s a long distance involved and there were other medical issues – I’m advised – [which] presented as well, which made the decision difficult about the time to airlift this person.
“There are obligations that need to be met in terms of the requirements around pilots and air-crew, as I’m advised, particularly given the long distance there, and the long distance back to Australia.”
The minister said people should “rely on the facts” rather than jumping to conclusions. Dutton would not comment on the “other medical issues” which complicated Omid’s transfer.
Omid’s act, in front of UNHCR officials, was captured on mobile phone video.
The graphic video shows a few people nearby, who did not appear to be expecting him to go through with his threat of setting himself on fire. When he did, they ran and tackled him to the ground, smothering the flames which had engulfed his body. He lay on the ground moaning, with severe burns across his body and head.
A second video shows him in the Nauru hospital, clearly conscious as he paces up and down while screaming – with severe burns apparent to his arms, legs, chest, and back – while distressed family members plead for him to be given assistance and painkillers.
Omid’s wife requested that the graphic videos and images of Omid not be shared or published out of concern for his family. She was able to inform them of his injuries on Thursday.
Within hours of of Omid’s act the Nauru government publicly deemed it a “political protest to coincide with the visit by representatives from UNHCR”.
“There is no value in such behaviour,” it said.
On Thursday night a vigil was held outside the Brisbane hospital, and detainees on Nauru wore T-shirts bearing Omid’s name while they held their 40th consecutive daily protest.
The UNHCR officials were on Nauru conducting a monitoring visit, after having visited Manus. The focus was on the “seriously deteriorated mental health of the transferred asylum-seekers and refugees” at both sites, a spokeswoman said.
Detainees reported feeling they were prevented from meeting with the representatives, or told there was nothing that could be done to help them.
A friend of Omid’s, who was present when set himself on fire, said Omid’s purpose was not a “fake demonstration”.
“He really decided to kill himself, sacrifice himself to finally prove it to Australians that he is suffering,” he said.
Omid’s death comes at the of a tumultuous week both inside the detention centres and in Australian and PNG politics.
Despite the threat of criminal conviction, there has been a spate of self harm incidents and further protest in Nauru as detainees become increasingly desperate at the news of the imminent closure of Manus Island’s facility.
On Tuesday PNG’s supreme court rule detention of asylum seekers and refugees to be unconstitutional and illegal, and ordered its end “forthwith”. The following day the PNG government announced the centre would close and that Australia must find alternative arrangements for people who did not settle in the country.
In response the Australian government said the 905 male detainees were PNG’s problem, and that the supreme court ruling did not bind Australia.
The two governments are now at loggerheads over the issue.
Christmas Island and Nauru have been raised as possible destinations for the men, but the government has refused to entertain this beyond saying that Nauru had “capacity”.
Dutton has suggested Manus could remain open in some altered form, and for a brief time on Friday the internal gates between compounds were open. Detainees reported elation at their newfound “freedom”, including an end to body searches, but on Friday afternoon it appeared the decision was reversed.
A move to a fully ‘open’ centre on Manus would seem to be an impossibility, because the detention centre is within a PNG naval base. Those held inside would not be allowed free movement in and out.
New Zealand has said its offer to accept 150 refugees from Australia each year, (an agreement with the Gillard government which Australia has since abandoned) still stands.
But Australia has rejected this, Dutton saying a move to New Zealand would be a “backdoor to Australia and a green light to people smugglers”.
Turnbull said settlement in a country like New Zealand “would be used by the people smugglers as a marketing opportunity.”
Any move by PNG to sidestep Australia and make a deal with New Zealand would be diplomatically controversial, directly defying Australia’s entrenched policy position of never allowing a boat arrival to reach it (New Zealand citizens can travel freely to Australia).
Australia and New Zealand relations have strained over Australia’s hardline immigration approach, but the nations remain close. PNG is Australia’s largest aid recipient and hugely dependent on Australia’s economic and political support.
Next week the Manus detention regime faces a fresh legal challenge, with the possibility the supreme court in Port Moresby could order that the men held on Manus Island be compensated for their three years of illegal detention.
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here
