Asia-Pacific

Asylum seeker injured during fight in detention center

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-02-09 15:50

CANBERRA -- A Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seeker was seriously injured in a brawl at the Christmas Island detention center in Australia, local media reported on Wednesday.

The Department of Immigration confirmed that a quarrel broke out between eight Sri Lankan, Iraqi and Kuwaiti detainees at Christmas Island in the early hours of Monday morning.

A spokesman of Immigration Department told Australia Associated Press that at about 1am (AEST) staff from the detention center's service provider, Serco, were able to break up the fight without any injuries being sustained.

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However, later in the day, another fight broke out between the same group of asylum seekers, which resulted in one man being seriously injured.

The injured detainee was a Tamil who had some of his teeth knocked out during the brawl inside the compound. The asylum seeker will be flown to Perth of Western Australia for medical treatment.

Three other detainees suffered minor injuries while a Serco staff member was also injured during the brawl and subsequently treated at the Christmas Island hospital.

The spokesman said the center remains calm at the moment, as Serco staff has now separated the Iraqi and Kuwaiti detainees involved in order to ensure their safety. The Australian Federal Police are investigating the incidents.

Meanwhile, Refugee advocate Ian Rintoul said further altercations are inevitable due to the tension caused by overcrowding at the Christmas Island detention center.

"It seems that the overcrowding is producing something of a gang culture among some of the detainees inside the detention center," he told Australia Associated Press on Wednesday.

"The overcrowding, the boredom, the delays and the misery is turning the detention centre into a hot house of frustration."

A recent report by Commonwealth Ombudsman found that, as of February this year, about 2,757 asylum seekers were living at the detention facility, well above its contingency accommodation capacity.