Should more be done to prevent suicides in immigration detention centres?
Over the last few months, the detention of asylum seekers in the UK has been widely criticised for the mental pressures it puts on vulnerable asylum seekers. Most recently, Amnesty International called the practice ‘protracted, inappropriate and disproportionate’. In the early hours of 27 June 2005, Ramazan Kumluca, a 19-year-old Kurdish asylum seeker, was found hanged in his cell at Campsfield House removal centre. It is believed that Ramazan had been detained for about six months and had made three unsuccessful bail applications. The Independent has reported that Ramazan had been held at the centre for so long that he had been given his own room – very unusual in the ‘detention estate’. The Home Office has informed his family and asked the Prisons and Probations Service ombudsman to investigate the death. A Home Office spokesperson said that later on the same day as Ramazan’s death there was another ‘incident of self-harm’ and that the asylum seeker is being cared for by staff in the
