MOFA denies reports on Iranian refugees removed from Taiwan

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/05/17
By: Lin Hsing-meng and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, May 17 (CNA) The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) denied media reports that an Iranian refugee and her son were returned to Nauru from Taiwan against psychiatric advice that the son should not be sent back because he suffers from a severe mental illness caused by his detention.

Taiwan officials said the patient completed her course of treatment and left the country in accordance with an existing agreement between Taiwan, Australia and Nauru.

Several local media outlets citing a report in British daily newspaper the Guardian, said that the Iranian refugee and her teenage son had been in Taiwan for two months after being medically transferred from an Australian-run immigration center on Nauru.

The mother had waited 18 months on Nauru for critical heart surgery but refused to be separated from her son, who was suicidal after more than five years on Nauru, according to the Guardian report.    [FULL  STORY]