Image source, UK News in Pictures
Police officers and prison staff were called to the immigration center after the “disruption.”
Detainees have caused a “disruption” at a London immigration center during a power cut, the Home Office says.
No one was injured in the incident at Harmondsworth Prison in west London.
It is understood that a group of detainees left their rooms and entered the yard of the immigration center armed with various weapons.
The power went out on the site on Saturday night.
Just before 0900 GMT, power was still out at the west London premises and the Home Office said work was underway to resolve the issue.
The government said no detainees had left the premises and those involved had since been returned to their rooms.
Police officers and HM Prison Service are on site. The Metropolitan Police said officers attended the incident at 07:45 and are still there.
The detention center in West Drayton, near Heathrow Airport, is holding hundreds of men, including adult male asylum seekers, foreign offenders awaiting deportation and men illegally in the UK.
A government report on the Harmondsworth immigration center raised some concerns about the site, including living conditions “below an acceptable standard”, following an inspection visit last year.
The chief inspector of prisons reported dirty cubicle toilets, problems with vermin and dilapidated communal showers.
Other concerns raised included high levels of vulnerability among inmates, those identified as being at risk of harm if held for too long, and inmates locked in their cells during lunchtime and overnight.
The purpose-built Immigrant Removal Center opened in 2000 and has a capacity of about 670 people. It is operated by contractors Mitie Care and Custody.
The center has a controversial history. In October 2012, inmate Prince Fosu, 31, was found dead on the floor of his cell and two companies that ran the center were prosecuted.
Conditions at the center were described as “desperate” in a 2016 report, which said some detainees had been held for too long.
It comes as the government faced widespread criticism this week for its handling of the overcrowding at an immigration center in Kent.
The Manston processing center came under the spotlight after reports emerged that migrants, including their families, were being held in violation of the law for four weeks.
The site, which is designed to take people no longer than 24 hours, was built to take 1,600 migrants at a time – but Home Office Secretary Chris Philp said there were more than 4,000 there on Monday.
Mr Philp defended the Government after criticism of its handling of the situation, saying on Friday there had been a “dramatic improvement” in conditions.
Mr Philp, the region’s MP, admitted mistakes had been made after two groups of migrants from central Manston were stranded in London.
He told Sky News both groups had told immigration officers they had addresses to go to, but “that later turned out that was not the case”.
“How this misunderstanding came about, maybe it got lost in translation, I don’t know, but obviously it’s all been taken care of now,” he said.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the challenge faced by migrants entering Britain via the English Channel as “serious and unprecedented” in an interview with the Times on Saturday.
“There is no easy overnight solution to this challenge,” he said.
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