AUSTRALIA: Hunger strikes by protesting asylum-seekers spread yesterday to a fourth Australian detention centre while refugee activists took to the streets of the country's two largest cities to call for greater compassion.
An Immigration Department spokesman said 17 people at the Port Hedland refugee camp in Western Australia began to refuse food and water in a copy-cat protest to mirror 12 days of turmoil at another camp in the baking heat of the interior.
Four of Australia's six detention centres for illegal immigrants are now in the grip of disturbances since around 200 at Woomera, 475 km north of Adelaide, began sewing their lips shut and trying to commit suicide 12 days ago.
A refugee lawyer, Mr Paul Boylan, told local media 370 people at Woomera were now on hunger strike but officials put it at 181.
The mainly Afghan and Middle Eastern asylum-seekers are protesting at the months it takes to process refugee claims.
The Immigration Department spokesman said an illegal immigrant who had thrown himself onto a razor wire fence at Woomera on Saturday was being monitored in hospital.
He added that three children had been taken to hospital overnight for observation as the inmates continued to refuse food and water.
The government's hard line, and a policy of intercepting all new boatpeople at sea with warships and shipping them to camps it has paid Pacific islands to set up, enjoys broad public support.
But the first cracks have begun to appear, with opposition centre-left Labor, which had previously backed the policy, on Saturday urging the government to free detained children.
Around 8,000 asylum-seekers have arrived in Australia over the past two years, a trickle according to the United Nations.
But Australia also takes 10,000 refugees a year formally resettled under a UN programme and another 50,000 permanent migrants.
Refugee groups yesterday demonstrated in Sydney, Melbourne and Port Hedland in sympathy with the detainees at Woomera, 34 of whom still had their mouths sewn with thread.