Somali refugees say they prefer death to Australia camps

September 27, 2000
Web posted at: 11:51 AM HKT (0351 GMT)

CANBERRA, Australia (Reuters) -- Three Somali asylum seekers have asked Australian immigration officials to send them home, saying they prefer possible death and torture in Somalia to enduring Australia's immigration detention centres.

The Somalis told the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs they were afraid they would lose their minds or commit suicide if they stayed in the Australian camps.

"We have lost more than 10 percent of our age in a terrifying, traumatizing, prison-like environment," the men said in a letter released on Wednesday by the Uniting Church, a Protestant church which is Australia's third largest.

"Therefore, we do prefer to go back to Somalia and die as innocent victims."

Church and human rights groups have criticised Australia's policy of detaining all illegal asylum seekers while their cases are considered.

The request is the latest in a series of complaints about the detention centres, which can house refugees and asylum seekers for years at a time, often in remote outback locations, while their cases grind slowly through the immigration process.

Asylum seekers rioted

About 100 Middle Eastern asylum seekers rioted early in September at the Woomera detention centre in the South Australian desert, torching six buildings, causing millions of dollars of damage and injuring 13 camp guards.

The three Somalis, who have not been identified, have lived

at the Port Hedland detention centre in northeastern Australia since their arrival in November 1997.

After nearly a decade of civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, the Horn of Africa country is only now testing a fragile reconciliation among warring clans.

Australia's conservative government, which has defended the camps as "not the Hilton" but still adequate, said it is prepared to take up the Somalis on their offer and send them home.

"There is some doubt whether their offer to return home has been made in good faith, whether they really mean it. But if they do wish to return home, that will be facilitated," a spokesman for Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock told Reuters.

Facilities at the camps have been strained as the number of illegal immigrants has risen dramatically in the last year. Official statistics show some 4,175 boatpeople arrived in the year to June 30, against 926 a year earlier.

In June, up to 700 detainees broke out of the Woomera facility and the Curtin centre in Western Australia to protest against conditions there, and the length of time it took to process applications.

'A dark day'

Christine Cargill, national director of social responsibility at the Uniting Church, called the Somali case a national embarrassment.

"It is a dark day in Australia's history when vulnerable individuals chose possible death over beautiful Olympic Australia," she said.

Ruddock said he suspected the men, who had been through the Federal Court and the Refugee Tribunal twice, were asking to return to Somalia as part of a ploy to win entry to Australia.

"I can only say that if you are suggesting the circumstances here are such that it is preferable to go back and put your life at risk, then obviously it suggests to me that there is an effort on the part of some to try and put pressure on me in relation to allowing them to remain," Ruddock told ABC radio on Wednesday.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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