citizenship

West Papuans to be granted citizenship

Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration, Rimbink Pato said Regional Resettlement Arrangement (RRA) refugees have a different level of need because they have arrived more recently and come from a non-Melanesian background.  

He said the Citizenship Advisory Committee will be meeting soon to deliberate on more than 1,000 West Papuan refugees who have been registered in East Awin, Kiunga, and Port Moresby.

Meanwhile, Pato said that in 1986 Papua New Guinea acceded to the 1951 Convention of the Status of Refugees and its related 1967 Protocol.