LONDON (Reuters) – A 26-year-old man died on Sunday while being held at a British migrant detention centre that was previously criticised at a public inquiry for subjecting people to inhumane treatment.
Britain’s interior ministry, the Home Office, said it could not comment further while an investigation was being carried out. It expressed its condolences to the man’s family and friends.
Contractor Serco confirmed the incident but did not comment further. It manages Brook House, the centre near Gatwick Airport in southern England.
Thousands of people in the UK are currently detained in one of seven immigration removal centres, or IRCs, awaiting either deportation or permission to remain in the country. There is no limit on how long someone can be detained.
A public inquiry last year found that some detainees at Brook House had been subjected to unacceptable treatment including the use of force or dangerous methods of restraint, and it described a toxic culture at the centre.
The inquiry was prompted by a BBC documentary which revealed that staff employed by outsourcing company G4S, which ran Brook House, repeatedly physically and verbally abused detainees.
The government said at the time that significant improvements had been made since then.
Sunday’s incident comes nearly a year after a 37-year-old Albanian man died after attempting suicide while detained at Brook House.
The Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group, which supports detainees at the centre, said: “Brook House is prison architecture and no-one should take their last breath there. We mourn that a young man died before he could be free.”
(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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