Immigrants on hunger strike in Australia

Illegal immigrants at a Sydney detention centre have begun a hunger strike in protest of “inhuman conditions”, reported AFP on Wednesday. Some 85 hunger strikers include immigrants from Sudan and Somalia. According to a spokesman for the immigrants, some of the detainees had been in the centre for up to four years and were forced to sleep on the floor without adequate warmth, said the report.

Others had reportedly sewn their lips together to demonstrate their desperation and determination in the hunger strike. An immigration department spokesman told AFP that conditions at Sydney’s Villawood Detention Centre were “adequate in every respect”. He said their cases would be considered in accordance with policy and the law: “If they should be refusing food, it will make no difference to the consideration of their cases”. The action follows similar protests at detention centres around Australia in recent months, AFP reported.