April 2016 → October 2017: Manus Island was closed, but the legal, human and financial fallout continues (39 still stranded in 2025)
The PNG Supreme Court declared Manus Island’s detention centre unconstitutional in April 2016, and the facility was formally closed in October 2017 — but those events did not resolve the policy’s costs, lawsuits or the people left in legal limbo. This article traces the closure’s sequence, how the offshore system worked, and the concrete checkpoints […]
