{"id":74581,"date":"2025-10-03T00:00:52","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T15:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/2025\/oct\/03\/refugees-and-asylum-seekers-on-nauru-going-hungry-despite-government-spending-15m-a-year-for-each-person"},"modified":"2025-10-03T00:00:52","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T15:00:52","slug":"asylum-seekers-on-nauru-going-hungry-despite-government-spending-1-5m-a-year-for-each-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=74581","title":{"rendered":"Asylum seekers on Nauru going hungry despite government spending $1.5m a year for each person"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Australian government is spending millions of dollars a year to house asylum seekers, yet many say they can not afford food and are forced to skip meals<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/live\/2025\/oct\/03\/png-agreement-aukus-submarines-pact-anthony-albanese-richard-marles-retired-admiral-slams-aukus-deal-gaza-flotilla-intercepted-ntwnfb\">Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Get our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/email-newsletters?CMP=cvau_sfl\">breaking news email<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/app.adjust.com\/w4u7jx3\">free app<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/series\/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl\">daily news podcast<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Refugees and asylum seekers held on Nauru claim they can\u2019t afford to eat and are forced to skip meals. Their plight comes despite <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/sep\/29\/us-private-prisons-operator-paid-790m-to-hold-100-people-on-nauru-in-quiet-expansion-of-contract\">Australia spending $1.5m per person<\/a> for a US prisons operator to house them, although the contract does not provide food.<\/p>\n<p>One asylum seeker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, claimed he often skipped meals to make his fortnightly stipend of $230 from Australia\u2019s home affairs department last.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/2025\/oct\/03\/refugees-and-asylum-seekers-on-nauru-going-hungry-despite-government-spending-15m-a-year-for-each-person\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Australian government is spending millions of dollars a year to house asylum seekers, yet many say they can not afford food and are forced to skip mealsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or d&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5009,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,43,388,324,491,629,874,494],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-australia-news","category-australian-immigration-and-asylum","category-australian-politics","category-migration","category-nauru","category-pacific-islands","category-refugees"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5009"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74582,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74581\/revisions\/74582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}