Inmates lit fires inside and barricaded themselves in a compound with weapons.
Advertisement
Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said five detainees sustained minor lacerations and injuries in the scuffles, and confirmed tear gas was used.
That has led to an influx of New Zealanders with criminal records – a few of whom were long-term residents of Australia – ending up in immigration detention while they await deportation.
Australian opposition politicians are calling for a review of the conditions at the detention center. The unrest was sparked by the death of a detainee who had escaped the camp.
Dutton said there are now 203 people at the Christmas Island Detention centre with no women or children held.
A coroner will investigate the death of the Iranian Kurdish man on Sunday, named by refugee groups as Fazel Chegeni.
Detainee Matej Cuperka, waiting to be deported to Slovakia, told the brodcaster that the death of Chegeni was very suspicious and the rioters believe the prison guards “did something to him…”
“If people have committed serious offences, including wilfully damaging Commonwealth property, they may face charges of that nature depending on the evidence gathered by the police”, he said.
The Department for Immigration and Border Protection described the incident as a “major disturbance” but denied there was a large scale riot.
Reza Barati, another Iranian, was also killed as a result of “brutal beating” by an Australian guard on the same island in February 2014.
The immigration department said staff at the centre would sweep all compounds to search for contraband such as weapons before detainees were moved back into normal accommodation. Successive governments have sent those intercepted on unsafe boats to Christmas Island, and more recently Manus island in Papua New Guinea and Nauru in the South Pacific.
Australia has taken a tough stance in recent years on asylum seekers who try to reach its shores illegally.
Prime Minister John Key said details are sketchy.
Advertisement
Australia’s policy of putting asylum seekers fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Asia alongside non-Australian criminals has come under criticism from both inside and outside the country.
