The minister for immigration has announced that a detention centre near Heathrow will be emptied by the end of Saturday after power cuts and a disturbance at the site.
A power outage that began just after midnight on Friday morning plunged the Harmondsworth immigration removal centre, in west London, into darkness.
About 100 people had protested in the centre’s exercise yard, according to earlier reports. No injuries were reported at the scene.
According to detainees the Guardian spoke to, some inside one wing refused to go into their cells to be locked up for the night on Friday evening in protest against the conditions they were subjected to as a result of the power cut.
The minister for immigration, Robert Jenrick, said “perpetrators” of the disturbance “would be held to account and, where appropriate, removed from the country as swiftly as is practicable.”
“There was disruption overnight at Harmondsworth immigration removal centre after a loss of power. Thankfully no staff working or individuals detained there were hurt, despite clear evidence of unacceptable levels of violence and disorder,” he said. “The priority now is to move people to other centres while engineers fix the power fault and repair any damage.”
One detainee who spoke to the Guardian accused the Home Office of subjecting people to conditions that should not exist in a first world country like the UK and said the water supply was also interrupted during the prolonged power outage, meaning people were unable to wash or use the toilet.
Another group of detainees said they were not involved in the protest and were outside getting fresh air in the yard when officials locked the gates. A detainee who spoke to the Mirror said he and others had been locked out in the exercise yard for several hours. Home Office sources deny that the gates were locked.
One detainee said: “I woke up just after midnight on Friday and everything was pitch black.
“The detainees on one of the wings refused to ‘bang up’ when it was time for them to go into their cells. They were saying: ‘We don’t have lights, we don’t have hot water, we can’t charge our phones, there’s no air coming into our cells.’”
He added that there was no protest among detainees on his wing. “We went outside to get some fresh air and then the officers locked the gates so we couldn’t get back inside. We were outside for about four hours and it was absolutely freezing.”
He added: “We couldn’t use the toilets because there was no running water so a lot of us decided not to eat or drink so we wouldn’t need to go to the toilet. The conditions the Home Office put us in are not what we would expect in a first world country.”
On Saturday evening detainees said they had been told to pack their bags but did not know where they were being taken. It is understood that some who the Home Office say were involved in the disturbance will be taken to prisons while the others will be taken to different detention centres.
About 100 people were due to be moved out of the centre to make way for new arrivals from the troubled and overcrowded centre at Manston, but this process had to be put on hold while Home Office contractors and emergency services dealt with the incident on Friday.
John McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington, who has Harmondsworth in his constituency, called for the centre to be shut down.
“Harmondsworth and next door Colnbrook have expanded into huge establishments with a history of problems for detainees who should not be locked up in this way,” he said. “The detainees are trapped in a system that is slow and demeaning and the frustrating factor is that most have their cases for asylum are accepted and they are eventually released. The plain fact is that we detain too many people completely unnecessarily and these centres should be shut down.”
A Home Office spokesperson said earlier on Saturday: “There has been a power outage at Harmondsworth immigration removal centre, and work is currently under way to resolve this issue. We are aware of a disturbance at the centre and the appropriate authorities have been notified and are on scene. The welfare and safety of staff and individuals detained at Harmondsworth is our key priority.”
A Metropolitan police spokesperson said: “Police officers have been providing support to staff dealing with a disturbance at the Harmondsworth immigration removal centre. Met officers attended the location at approximately 19:45hrs on Friday 4 November. Officers remain at the location.”
