Asylum seekers on Christmas Island are staging a hunger strike and a number of detainees have sewn their lips together.
Guardian Australia understands several asylum seekers are protesting about being separated from family members within the detention centre. The hunger strike began late last week, and several asylum seekers are reported to have sewn their lips together.
Family members are increasingly being separated from one another in detention.
Elham, an Iranian woman who is detained on Christmas Island, who suffered a miscarriage after, she alleges, doctors refused to give her an ultrasound and was told to "lower her expectations" after she complained, has been split from her husband, Hamid. She says Hamid has been transferred to Darwin for surgery on his back.
Nazanin, the asylum seeker who was filmed by the Immigration Department and says she has been identified by Iranian authorities from the footage, is also detained in the Lilac compound on Christmas Island with Elham.
Nazanin said: "She was really sad, she is a close friend of mine, when we chat together she is really upset. She was crying sometimes. They didn’t tell them yet [when they will be reunited].”
The Christmas Island facility is running at a high capacity, with more than 2000 asylum seekers at the centre. The Australian also reported today that an asylum seeker became agitated and made bomb threats on a plane to the Island.
A spokeswoman for the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, said: “It is longstanding government practice not to confirm or comment on reports of such protest behaviour as commentary or publication of such activities can provide an incentive for such behaviour, which is in the best interests of people in detention to discourage."