No pregnant asylum-seeker sent to Nauru: Peter Dutton

Immigration minister Peter Dutton has rubbished claims his department planned to send a pregnant asylum-seeker offshore.

Some reports have suggested up to 25 people self harmed during the disturbance at Darwin’s Wickham Point immigration detention centre last night.

Immigration minister Peter Dutton has rubbished claims by asylum-seeker advocates that his department planned to send a pregnant asylum seeker to Nauru, blamed for sparking a disturbance at Darwin’s Wickham Point immigration detention centre last night.

A spokeswoman for Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Mr Dutton, said reports attributed to asylum seeker advocates that up to 100 people had taken part in a riot were, “wildly exaggerated and inaccurate.”

“Claims we were sending a pregnant woman offshore are incorrect. No woman who was pregnant was due to be transferred,” the spokeswoman said. “There was minor property damage and there were no injuries to staff or detainees.”

Some reports have suggested up to 25 people self harmed during the disturbance, which began is understood to have begun at around 3pm yesterday and continued into the night.

A spokesman for the Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network, Ben Pynt, said the trouble started when detainees formed the view that two vulnerable Iranian families were about to be deported.

“The detainees were trying to prevent a young woman, who’s five months pregnant and who tried to commit suicide recently, and a family with a three-month old infant from being sent offshore to Nauru,” Mr Pynt said. “I understand that part of the fence was knocked down separating the single males’ compound from the families’ compound.”

No further information was provided by Mr Dutton’s office about the allegations of self harm or plans to deport the second family.

The Australian understands official reports state about 30 people took part in the disturbance, in which detainees broke into a recreation area and staged a peaceful protest.

Mr Pynt said he had counted eight marked police cars, five unmarked cars, at least one ambulance and one fire engine at the centre, while waiting outside the until shortly after midnight.

“The level of police presence is indicative of a major disturbance rather than a minor disturbance,” he said. “I had ten people call me yesterday to say that [the department was planning to deport the pregnant woman] and I also spoke to somebody this morning who said that that was the case.”

“As has happened in multiple times the past, the department is trying to play down the incident.”

He called for media to be allowed inside detention centres.

Mr Dutton’s spokeswoman said the government had made it clear that people who did not follow proper immigration processes would not be settled in Australia.

“The government has made it very clear that this type of behaviour will not change their outcome,” the spokeswoman said.

“The government remains committed to regional processing and resettlement arrangements.”