“Police were dressed in full riot gear with the shields and batons”.
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The trouble followed a peaceful protest by detainees on Sunday after the discovery of the body of an Iranian Kurdish asylum-seeker, named by Australian media as Fazel Chegeni, who had escaped.
Violence erupted at the centre on Sunday night after the death of an asylum seeker whose body was found at the bottom of the island’s cliffs.
His death is now subject to a coronial investigation but Dutton told parliament he had been told the circumstances were “not suspicious”.
Inmates have complained about their treatment at the facility on the Australian territory northwest of the mainland.
NZ Labour MP Kelvin Davis, who recently visited the island, said he’d been in touch with a New Zealander in detention and was told detainees had taken over the centre and guards had retreated.
Others are sent to Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and Nauru in the South Pacific.
“Order or control hasn’t been regained within the centre”, Mr Dutton told Sky News.
The death of an Iranian asylum seeker triggered yesterday’s riot that resulted in widespread damage to the facility.
The centre, on an island closer to Indonesia than Australia, also houses New Zealanders facing deportation from Australia after Canberra began cancelling visas of those with criminal records.
The man in his early 30s was recognised as a refugee upon arriving in the country in 2010 but his application was stalled because of an assault charge moved against him due to a fight between detainees at another detention facility, Refugee Action Coalition said.
“There are lessons to be learnt, no doubt”, he said.
Australian officials were working Monday to contain a reported riot at a remote detention center for asylum seekers in the Indian Ocean.
Mr Dutton stated a sixth detainee had been evacuated for “minor injuries and a medical condition unrelated to incident”, although a Greens source told reporters the man had been evacuated after trying to overdose, having helped himself to drugs from the medical centre.
“There’s an operation underway”.
Kiwi detainee Lester Hohua said convicted criminals with cancelled visas joined forces with asylum seekers. “The place has been smashed to pieces”, the inmate said. “They could see a few of the police were armed”, he said. “I believe that canisters have been fired into the compound but haven’t gone off”, he said.
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A detainee at the Christmas Island detention centre said the facility was still in the hands of protesters, there were no guards inside the facility and fires had been lit in the education centre.
