Racial violence has erupted between Middle Eastern and Pacific Islander detainees who fought with shivs at the Melbourne Immigration Detention Centre.
The clash between the two groups of about a dozen men exploded at 6am on Tuesday at the troubled facility in Broadmeadows, where serious foreign criminals awaiting deportation are housed alongside visa overstayers and political prisoners.
Three men were taken to hospital in a stable condition for injuries suffered in the brawl, and staff found makeshift prison knives in a common area of the facility.
A source told Noticer News the fight was drug-related, and that similar clashes broke out “all the time” between groups divided along racial lines in the detention centre, which they described as more violent and lawless than prison.
The vast majority of MIDC workers are immigrants on working visas and turn a blind eye to rampant drug use in the detention centre, the source said, while White Australians are a “small minority” of staff.
The MIDC is run by Secure Journeys, a subsidiary of American private prison operator Management and Training Corporation, which took over management of Australia’s onshore detention centre system from UK giant Serco last year on a $2.3 billion five-year contract.
Last year three detainees, Manuele Ene, Navpreet Singh, and a third man, were arrested for allegedly running an $8 million Medicare scam from inside the facility while waiting to be deported.
But after being charged and facing Ene and Singh were then given visas and allowed to live in the community while out on bail, resulting on the government being questioned over the decision in the Senate earlier this year.
During the same period, Ukrainian refugee Yan Zahkarin, 20, spent eight months in the MIDC after being charged along with 15 other members or associates of the now-disbanded National Socialist Network over an alleged clash with far-left extremists at so-called Camp Sovereignty on August 31 last year.
Mr Zakharin pleaded not guilty to charges of affray, violent disorder and discharge missile, but was unable to appeal the decision as his visa was personally cancelled by Labor minister Julian Hill due to his political ideology.
He was deported to Ukraine last week after going on a hunger strike to protest the Australian Border Force’s initial refusal to allow him to leave Australia, and the dangerous conditions inside the MIDC.
Header image: An outdoor area at the Melbourne Immigration Detention Centre (supplied).
