UN, doctors hammer Australia over refugee camps

Australia's under-pressure government received a double blow Monday from the United Nations and a leading doctors' group over harsh treatment of refugees on off-shore island camps.

In an unusual broadside, a top official for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees accused "bureaucrats and politicians" of overruling doctors and putting lives at risk at camps on Nauru and Manus.

Australia holds unauthorised migrants who try to reach the island continent by boat in "off-shore detention" -- part of a harsh policy designed to deter would-be asylum-seekers.

UNHCR's Catherine Stubberfield decried the policy as "sold too simplistically" and said changing it was now a matter of "basic human treatment and decency."
"It is a crisis that is entirely preventable. The government can act to end it."