Australia asylum-seeker dies after infection

Hamid Khazaei,an Iranian man who had been seeking asylum in Australia, but developed septicaemia after a cut on his foot at an offshore detention centre, has died.

BBC ASIA – Activists said Hamid Khazaei, 24, cut his foot while at Australia’s camp on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.

The cut became infected and led to septicaemia, which caused a heart attack, they say.

Ian Rintoul of the Refugee Action Coalition confirmed news of Mr Khazaei’s death to the BBC.

Australia’s immigration minister defended the medical care he received when he was declared brain dead.

“When someone becomes ill, they receive outstanding care from the people who work as part of our mainland detention network and in the offshore processing centres,” Scott Morrisson said.

He said he had asked the immigration department’s chief medical officer to review the man’s clinical treatment.

But Mr Rintoul has blamed conditions in the camp for Mr Khazaei’s infection, saying detainees sometimes had to walk through raw sewage overflows caused by hosing out blocked toilets and by high tides.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says there was a delay in providing adequate care to Mr Khazaei – a claim echoed by Mr Rintoul, who described the Manus Island camp as “unhygienic hell-hole that must be closed”.

Mr Morrison said such claims “have not been based on any primary knowledge of this case”. He accused critics of using the case “to make political points”.