Doctor says Australia covering up mental illness in asylum-seeker children


Sri Lankan asylum seekers who were sent back by Australia cover their faces as they wait to enter a magistrate's court in the southern port district of Galle July 8, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A former healthcare worker at Australia's immigration detention centres said on Thursday the government asked him to cover up evidence that children held in the camps were suffering from widespread mental illness caused by their confinement.

Under policies aimed at stopping asylum seekers reaching Australia's mainland by boat, migrants are sent to camps in Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific nation of Nauru where they face long periods of detention while they are processed.

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