First asylum seeker families arrive on Nauru
The first group of asylum seeker families to Nauru arrived this
morning (21 August) aboard a chartered flight of Nauru's national
carrierOur Airline, from Christmas Island.
The 26 new arrivals are of Iranian nationality and consist of
seven families - seven adult males, seven adult females and 12
children under the age of 18.
Like previous arrivals the group completed brief immigration
formalities before boarding mini-buses to take them to the third
Regional Processing Centre site at Topside, separated from the
single male groups.
The transfer from aircraft to Topside was without incident.
A separate group of 30 male asylum seekers who had been residing
at the RPC departed on the outbound flight a few hours later to the
Curtin Detention Centre in Australia.
The transfers bring the total number of asylum seekers on island
to 474.
Sixty-six asylum seekers of mixed nationalities have opted to
return to their home countries since the first arrivals 11 months
ago.