The Australian government, under pressure for its harsh migrant detention policy, has received a double blow as the United Nations and a leading doctors' group again criticised its harsh treatment of refugees held on remote Pacific islands.
The regional office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Monday accused "bureaucrats and politicians" of overruling doctors and putting lives at risk at camps on Nauru and Manus.
Australia sends migrants who try to reach the island continent by boat into "offshore detention" as part of a years-old policy designed to deter would-be asylum-seekers.
Catherine Stubberfield, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR, was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency that the policy had been "sold too simplistically" and that changing it was now a matter of "basic human treatment and decency".
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