The Australian government is being accused of deliberately inflicting suffering on people being held in immigration detention on Nauru.
Rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have conducted a joint covert investigation with two of their representatives spending 12 days on the island last month.
The report claims detainees are routinely neglected and sometimes denied medical care and are subject to abuse and violence from Nauruans.
Amnesty International says it had tried numerous times and failed to get permission to visit Nauru but one of its staff managed to travel there legally to see the conditions for herself.
Amnesty's Doctor Anna Neistat says what she saw appalled her.
NEISTAT
"Quite honestly, I can tell you that that I've been covering war zones and closed countries for the last 15 years and the situation on Nauru stands out, it does stand out because of almost senseless cruelty and injustice that is happening there."
Doctor Neistat and a representative from Human Rights Watch, Michael Bochenek, interviewed 84 asylum seekers and refugees and four service providers.
Michael Bochenek told the ABC all the detainees complained of mistreatment by the Nauruans.
BOCHENEK
"I had people tell us that every time they ventured out into the community, they are at least verbally harassed, sworn at, cursed, spit upon, have bottles thrown at them and other objects. People have described been swerved at as they walked down the side of the road and we have much more serious physical attacks. People attacking with pipes, with sticks, drawing blood, and when refugees and asylum seekers complain to police about the actions of people in the local community those complaints are very often met with no response whatsoever."
