During a night of rioting, security guards were attacked with fire extinguishers and bombarded with tiles and wood in one of the most serious outbreaks of violence between asylum-seekers in Australia, where the policy of indefinite detention is a sensitive political issue.
Riot police had to be called to quell the protest after armed guards of the centre were forced to retreat to the attacks.
About 100 asylum seekers in detention centre in Villawood immigration, which is home to many people whose requests for refuge were rejected and are awaiting deportation, climbed onto roofs late at night and started to set fire to the buildings.
By dawn, the fire had been extinguished and the smouldering remains of a laundry, kitchen and Medical Center buildings could be seen, but authorities were still struggling to contain the situation in the centre. Police tried to coax seven asylum seekers from the roof of a building. The Group had erected a sign read "we need help."
The protesters want a meeting with immigration officials, but a Ministry spokesman said that would not happen.
Police have warned that men who participated in the riot could face charges of criminal damage which could further the dent their chances of being granted asylum.
But rights groups of refugees said that violence was an act of desperation by people who had been detained for almost two years.
Brami Gegan, of the refugee Action Coalition, said the men stressed and frustrated.
"What happened is an absolute Act of desperation," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"It is a cry from the help."
Sandi Logan, a spokesman for the Immigration Department, said that he was unaware that had aroused protests.
But the refugee Action Coalition said that a confrontation between guards and inmates had led to violence.
In recent years, the Australia has seen a growing number of asylum-seekers originating from countries such as the Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, who arrive by boat via neighbouring countries such as the Indonesia. The policy of mandatory detention, they are taken to the detention centre of Christmas Island, which was quickly filled, forcing mainland centres to be used.
The Government said detention is necessary for national security, but criticism of current policy say indefinite detention is cruel and leads to mental illness, noting people can spend years locked up until their status is determined.
The riots in the West of Sydney's Villawood detention centre are weeks after 250 asylum set fire to tents in the centre of detention of Christmas Island to protest against delays in processing their applications for asylum and the restrictions on their movements in the centre. Some 150 inmates broke from the centre, but were quickly returned. On the roof of the demonstrations were also characteristic common to Villawood in the six months. In September, a Fijian asylum jumped to his death from the roof at Villawood, just hours before that it due to be deported.
While the Government was struggling to find a solution to the issue of immigration, the conservative opposition wants that all asylum seekers should be sent to the small nation of the Pacific of Nauru for processing in the hope that it will deter many to make the perilous journey of the Indonesia in rickety boats hazardous.
In December, 50 asylum seekers died when their boat broke in heavy seas on the rocks off the coast of Christmas Island.
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