Detainees revolt after suicide

A second suicide attempt and violent confrontation between detainees and staff plagued Curtin Detention Centre following the death of a young asylum seeker last week.

Violence erupted after staff attempted to remove the body of a 20-year-old Afghan man after he was found hanged in his room on Monday.

After failing to resuscitate the detainee, staff decided to move him to the camp’s medical facility. A staff member at the centre said a crowd of detainees surrounded and attacked him and his colleagues.

The body, which was being carried in a sheet, was knocked to the ground during the confrontation and staff left the scene for their own safety.

Twenty-four hours later, a second asylum seeker had attempted suicide.

The Sri Lankan man was found hanging from a tree in the garden in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Centre staff attended the scene minutes later and cut him down. He suffered minor injuries and was taken to a hospital for a check-up.

A Refugee Council of Australia spokesperson described the week’s events as “shocking for everyone” and said the system was “completely flawed”.

“We’re calling for an urgent reform of the system,” she said.

“History shows us these suicide tragedies and incidents of selfharm will be repeated, unless there is change.”

There have been five suicides in immigration detention in the past seven months – and the death of the 20-year-old was the second at Curtin.

The first, a 28-year-old man, died at Curtin of natural causes – a heart attack, in August last year.

Victoria Martin-Iverson from the Refugee Action Network said “this is what happens when detention centres become mental illness factories – apart from those who have killed themselves, the incidents of self-harm and attempted suicide is climbing all the time.”