Asia | Australia’s asylum-seekers

Prisoners of the outback

Protests over harsh policy

Jun 28th 2001|sydney

UNDER cover of darkness, seven people dug a tunnel beneath the barbed-wire fence of their detention centre in South Australia on June 9th and disappeared into the outback. Most stayed free for nine days, some even reaching Western Australia, 2,000km (1,250 miles) away, before being captured and returned to their prison at Woomera, a remote place once used to test rockets. Theirs was just the latest in a series of desperate measures by asylum-seekers whose treatment in Australia's detention centres has prompted criticism by human-rights groups and Australian parliamentarians alike.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Prisoners of the outback”