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A Kurdish asylum-seeker's 'despair' drove
him to suicide
22.7.2006
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A Kurdish teenager
killed himself after spending more than four months
in an immigration detention centre, an inquest has
heard.
Ramazan Kumluca, 18, is the youngest asylum-seeker
to have committed suicide while facing deportation
from Britain.
Campaign groups yesterday called for the closure of
all detention centres, comparing them to Victorian
workhouses.
Mr Kumluca is one of more than 30 asylum-seekers who
have killed themselves in the past five years after
being told their applications had failed.
He had travelled from his home in Turkey to Italy
and then on to Britain where he claimed asylum last
year, saying that his life was in danger over a
£20,000 debt owed by his father. He also claimed
that if he was sent back to Italy (under rules that
asylum must be claimed in the first safe country
reached) he was at risk of exploitation.
Mr Kumluca was refused asylum and denied bail
because there were fears he would not report back
for deportation. He was sent to Campsfield House in
Oxfordshire, an immigration removal centre that
holds around 100 men at any time.
The average stay for detainees at the centre is 14
days, but because the teenager was fighting his
deportation order he was held for four and a half
months.
An inquest at Oxford Old Assizes heard he had been
plunged into despair during his incarceration and
had complained of insomnia, headaches and anxiety. A
fellow inmate, Abdulwase Kamali, told the court Mr
Kumluca had appeared "sad" the day before he killed
himself. He said: "Ramazan said he had been told by
immigration he would be sent back to Italy, and he
said if he was sent back to Italy he would be used
in sex films. He said he would slash himself or hang
himself."
On 27 June last year, Mr Kamali and other Muslim
detainees alerted warders after calling Mr Kumluca
for morning prayers and finding his door would not
open. He was found hanging from the door closing
mechanism.
After investigating his death, a Prison and
Probation ombudsman cleared staff of any wrongdoing.
Outside the court, Bob Hughes, of the pressure group
Campaign to Close Campsfield, said: "Here we have an
institution full of people being driven deliberately
to despair by government policy."
"He added: "We believe these people should be
allowed to get on with their own lives. Centres like
Campsfield are a huge national scandal and shame.
"When the history books are written the current
hysteria against asylum-seekers will be an episode
comparable with the Victorian workhouse and
slavery."
Campsfield House has been a removal centre since
1993 and is privately run by the company Global
Solutions Limited. In 2002, the then Home Secretary
David Blunkett pledged that the centre would be
closed, but a year later it was decided to keep it
open and expand the number of places.
Since 2000, at least 25 asylum-seekers have killed
themselves while living in the community after being
told they would be deported. Mr Kumluca was the
seventh to have committed suicide in a detention
centre. More than 2,600 adults and children are
being held in detention centres prior to
deportation. In January this year another
asylum-seeker Bereket Yohannes, from Eritrea, was
found hanging at Harmondsworth Removal Centre. An
inquest will be held into his death.
independent co.uk
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