Two refugees to sue Australia over continued detention

Then-immigration minister Scott Morrison broke the law when he put children into offshore detention system, lawyers say.

Two refugees are taking the Australian government to court, arguing that their detention offshore was fundamentally illegal because they were children at the time. Cousins Mehdi and Adnan, who by chance travelled on the same boat from Jakarta to Australia, were just 16 when they were sent to Nauru – a Pacific island nation more than 3,000 kilometres (1,864 miles) northeast of Brisbane that had made a deal with Australia to host asylum seekers and refugees who had tried to get to Australia by sea. They prefer not to disclose their country of origin for security reasons. The cases are just two of a series of upcoming hearings regarding refugees sent into Australia’s offshore detention system as unaccompanied minors.