Police using dogs and a helicopter were last night still searching for 14 detainees who escaped from a troubled immigration centre in Oxfordshire.
Officers in riot gear were called to disturbances at the Campsfield House centre after a fire was started near propane gas canisters outside the kitchen on Saturday. In the aftermath, 26 inmates escaped but 12 were caught.
Tensions over conditions had been growing all week. Detainees held a one-day hunger strike and twice refused to return to their rooms at night. Problems had been increasing since Campsfield started to house foreign prisoners awaiting deportation, alongside people still appealing for asylum.
One inmate said detainees evacuated from the main building had forced open a gate in the perimeter fence. "Some of them set a fire by the gas canisters as a decoy. The alarms went off and as soon as they took us outside, people were climbing over the fence and pushing at the gate. The guards were caught with their pants down; they didn't know what to do."
Superintendent Robin Rickard, of Thames Valley Police, said: "I urge members of the public to contact us immediately if they see anyone they believe could be one of those involved."
Damian Green, the shadow Immigration minister, said: "This is an inevitable consequence of the Government filling immigration detention centres with foreign prisoners they have failed to deport. Until the Government gets a grip on prison overcrowding, the problems will continue to spill over and cause dangerous tensions in immigration detention centres."
After a fire and riot at Campsfield this March, in which several staff and detainees were injured, a Home Office report concluded that overcrowding, poor physical conditions and bureaucratic delays could lead to more rioting at such centres.
It also warned that foreign prisoners may be tempted to join in disturbances because, facing deportation, they consider they have little to lose.
Campsfield, formerly a young offenders' institution, has been prone to rooftop protests, riots and hunger strikes since it was converted into an immigration detention centre in 1993.
It is the only one of Britain's 10 immigration detention centres to be run by the American company Global Expertise in Outsourcing (GEO). The company also has a contract to run a "migrant operations centre" at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay. GEO describes itself as a "world leader in the privatised management of correctional facilities".
But campaigners say that conditions in Campsfield have deteriorated since GEO took over, and warned that this weekend's uprising was unlikely to be the last.
Bob Hughes, of the Campaign to Close Campsfield, said: "Since GEO arrived, there has been a marked reduction in the association time for detainees, and a deterioration in both food and medical attention."
Built to hold 196 prisoners, the centre is almost always at full capacity, with reports of three or four detainees in cells designed for one. A detainee said: "There are three of us in my cell with no ventilation. We are just boiling in here. This is worse than prison. At least in prison you know when you're getting out; here we don't know where we stand."
Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: "Reports keep telling us Campsfield and other detention centres are horrible so it is not surprising that these people - who are often detained for long periods - are desperate to escape."
Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP whose Oxford West and Abingdon constituency includes the Campsfield centre, called for an inquiry into the use of private companies to run detention centres.
GEO did not respond to an interview request.
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