Police fired water cannon at up to 100 rioting Afghani and Iraqi asylum-seekers yesterday after days of unrest at Australia's largest detention centre in a remote desert town.
Immigration officials and police said rioters set fire to four buildings and tore down fences at the detention centre in Woomera, in the South Australia outback, and were using slingshots and fence pickets as weapons.
The detainees shouted "Freedom, freedom" and had hung signs declaring "SOS" and "800 victims" as smoke billowed from newly-lit fires in the isolated camp, local television showed.
About 800 asylum-seekers, mostly from Afghanistan and Iraq, are being held at the camp in the town after arriving illegally in Australia by boat from Asia.
Several hundred broke out of the camp in June and staged a peaceful protest against their detention in a car-park.
"The rioters are mostly young men who have wrapped their heads in towels to avoid identification," Immigration Department spokesman Mr Norman Abjorensen said. Thirteen security guards were reported to have suffered minor injuries, mainly cuts, with some requiring medical attention. There were no reports of injuries to the rioters, and officials said there were no escapes.
Police said reinforcements, including elite Star Force special services officers, had been sent to help quell the violence at the centre near a former rocket-testing range. Officials said the situation had calmed by nightfall.
Unrest had been growing over the past week at the centre, about 475 km north of Adelaide. Tear gas was used to end a protest on Saturday and local media reported a second razor wire fence had been erected last week around the camp.
"Yesterday things went quiet, but all hell broke loose before dawn this morning," Mr Abjorensen said.
Critics said the national government was partly to blame for the uprising, accusing it of trying to make the detainees' lives as uncomfortable as possible to deter others from trying to get to Australia illegally.
Church and community groups have criticised conditions at the camp, where temperatures are often more than 40 degrees. They say rooms are cramped and facilities limited. Residents said they feared another breakout.
Australia has seen a dramatic rise in the number of illegal immigrants arriving by boat, particularly from the Middle East. Official figures show nearly 7,900 arrived in 1998-99, leaving the country's six detention centres with a combined capacity of 3,600 full to overflowing.
The federal government has taken a hard stand against the asylum-seekers, accusing them of paying people-smugglers to help them jump the refugee queue into Australia.