Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Center

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The entrance to the camp (April 2003)

The Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Center ( Woomera Detention Center for short ) was an immigration detention center for asylum seekers located near the village of Woomera in the outback in South Australia . The refugee camp was located a long way from larger towns on the former missile test site Woomera Prohibited Area , where the unused buildings of the Woomera West Construction Camp were located. In the course of its existence there were considerable overcrowding in the internment camp, numerous riots, hunger strikes and suicide - as well as escape attempts. The warehouse founded in 1999 was closed again in 2003. There were numerous protests against the conditions in the camp itself, as well as from outside by human rights groups and by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees .

prehistory

After John Howard of the Liberal Party of Australia won the election to prime minister in 1996 , he formed a government coalition with the National Party of Australia and pursued a rigid migration policy . This government pursued the goal of opening asylum procedures in camps and detaining them until their status was clarified and, if necessary, deporting them from there. Towards the end of the 1990s there was a rush of asylum seekers. The Port Hedland Immigration Reception and Processing Center and Curtin Immigration Reception and Processing Center were overcrowded, so the National Liberal government decided to open another camp.

camp

The camp was on a treeless plain in a desert-like landscape, far from urban centers. In the hot Australian summers, temperatures could rise above 40 ° Celsius. At these temperatures, the buildings in which the asylum seekers were housed were completely overheated. The internment camp at Woomera had a capacity of 400 people and by April 2000 was overcrowded with almost 1500 people. The camp, which is fenced off by barbed wire, mainly housed refugees from Afghanistan who had fled the war in Afghanistan since 2001 .

Warehouse management

The private security service, which the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection commissioned to manage the camp, employed staff, of whom very few had access to appropriate psychological and medical training. For example, there were at times only two women for every 1,000 asylum seekers who were responsible for sick inmates who had no training. 3 people were responsible for processing asylum applications. Too little staff was employed. Due to a lack of qualifications, the camp staff could hardly react adequately to post-traumatic stress, nervous breakdowns and suicide attempts by the camp inmates. Hundreds of self-harm and attempted suicide are believed to have occurred. To make matters worse, processing the asylum applications took up to three years.

The care of the children in the camp showed serious deficiencies. For example, according to the Australian Human Rights Commission , as of September 1, 2001, there were 456 children among the 1,442 inmates. The average length of stay per child in Australian internment camps had increased steadily since 1999 and amounted to 1 year, 8 months and 11 days on December 26, 2003.

Protests

In June 2000 around 480 asylum seekers broke out of the camp and marched as far as Woomera.

Arson riots, in which 60 to 80 asylum seekers took part, began in August 2000. Tear gas and water cannons were used to quell the unrest . 32 camp employees were injured in the clashes.

In the first months of 2001, human rights groups protested against the conditions in the camp. In the course of 2001 there were several riots in the camp, which were suppressed with the use of tear gas and water cannons. There had been eight arson attacks as of December 19, 2001.

Protest at the fence of the camp (March 27, 2002)

In January 2002, more than 200 asylum seekers went on hunger strike. After the end of this strike in February 2002, the UNHCR expressed its satisfaction that the hunger strike could be ended, but called on the Australian government to reconsider and change its migration policy. In March 2002, 1,000 camp inmates protested. In the course of this protest, about 50 camp inmates fled over the camp fence. Most of the fugitives were repatriated. This protest was in connection with the Woomera 2002 Festival of Freedom , in which Australian human rights activists and numerous Aborigines from the local Kokatha and Arabunna participated.

In June 2002, 190 inmates went on hunger strike and 50 of them are said to have sewn their lips together in protest.

closure

After the camp was closed in April 2003, the remaining asylum seekers were transferred to the Baxter Immigration Reception and Processing Center .

See also

literature

  • Frank Brennan: Tampering with Asylum. University of Queensland Press 2003. ISBN 0-7022-3416-8 .

Web links

Commons : Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Center  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Quentin McDermott: Program Transcript: The Guards' Story ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , dated September 15, 2008 from Australian Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved March 5, 2017 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.abc.net.au
  2. ↑ ... About Woomera ( Memento of the original from March 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , dated September 15, 2008 from Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved March 5, 2017 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.abc.net.au
  3. ↑ A last resort? National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention , 2004, on Australian Human Rights Commission. Retrieved March 5, 2017
  4. ↑ Dominiqu Hughes: Australia's detention camps criticized , on BBC, April 5, 2001. Retrieved March 6, 2017
  5. ↑ Palm O'Toole: Australia's detention center in the desert , December 19, 2001, on the BBC. Retrieved March 6, 2017
  6. ↑ Edwardo Cue: UNHCR urges Australia to review policy of detaining asylum seekers , February 1, 2002, on un.org. Retrieved March 7, 2017
  7. ↑ Jess Whyte: We Are Human Beings: The Woomera Breakout . from 2002, on artactivism.gn.pc.org. Retrieved March 5, 2017
  8. ↑ Lauren Ahwan: 50 sew up lips in hunger strike, detainees claim , June 27, 2002 on The Age . Retrieved March 5, 2017


Coordinates: 31 ° 11 ′ 7 ″  S , 136 ° 48 ′ 27 ″  E