Woomera refugees still on the run

Eight asylum-seekers were still at large last night after a mass-break out from Woomera detention centre during clashes between demonstrators and riot police.

Eight asylum-seekers were still at large last night after a mass-break out from Woomera detention centre during clashes between demonstrators and riot police.

Thirty-one other escapees from the remote desert camp in South Australia were recaptured and arrested, together with 16 protesters who were charged with harbouring them. Two detainees got as far as Port Augusta, 110 miles away, before being caught.

Six detainees, including three children, and two protesters were found in a hire car bogged down in mud near Woomera, which holds mainly Afghan and Iraqi asylum-seekers. Four other protesters were arrested after they broke through a fence.

The escape took place after about 700 people demonstrating against the mandatory detention of asylum-seekers tore down perimeter fencing at Woomera on Friday night and stormed the compound. Some inmates scaled fences topped with razor wire, while others broke through holes in the fence.

The activists had converged on the camp, where Afghan immigrants staged a hunger strike in January, for four days of protests. Guards used tear gas to fend off detainees armed with rocks and bed posts. Seventeen officers and a dozen inmates were injured.

Some of the missing asylum-seekers were believed to be hiding in a campsite set up by demonstrators about a mile away. Police mounted roadblocks to prevent them from leaving the area. One 20-year-old Afghan detainee told journalists: "I cannot go back in the camp. If officers kill me, police kill me, good, but don't send me into the camp."