Group's bid to end crisis today
Sygney Morning Herald
Members of the federal government's Immigration Detention Advisory Group (IDAG) will try to end the crisis at the Woomera detention centre today.
The detainees' hunger strike, which has spread to other immigration centres, today enters its third week.
Some protesters have sewn their lips together, while a group of teenagers has threatened suicide if not removed from the detention facility in South Australia's north.
A second group of nine children have already been removed from the centre.
IDAG acting chairman Ray Funnell said he hoped to find a way to end the hunger strike today.
He and two other members flew into Woomera last night as more than 200 detainees continued to refuse food and nine unaccompanied teenagers appeared intent on suicide.
Mr Funnell said the IDAG had fruitful discussions with hunger strikers' delegates late last week.
"There's an excellent rapport we've developed with the detainees' representatives, and I think because of that we're looking for some truly productive discussions," the retired air marshal told ABC Radio.
"Our mission is to help resolve this terrible crisis and to avert tragedy and I think we're well on the way to doing that."
Mr Funnell and colleagues, psychiatrist Harry Minas and refugee and torture victims activist Paris Aristotle, made a hospital visit to the man who threw himself on to razor wire on Saturday.
He was now stable and well on the way to recovery, Mr Funnell said.
He said of major concern was the group of teenagers threatening suicide, who have shifted their deadline from yesterday to today.
"The first thing we did when we got to the centre is establish - because the reports we got were somewhat conflicting - establish just precisely what was going on," Mr Funnell said.
"We spoke with the delegates and the first thing we did was make sure that that was not going to occur, that that was not hanging over our head as we re-engaged in negotiations.
"They assured us that it wouldn't and, because of the trust we place in those people, we knew they were correct in saying that."
Mr Funnell said when he was last at Woomera in September he felt quite optimistic asylum seekers could be processed quickly with an alternative model of shifting women and children into the town.
"When I went back last Tuesday, no," he said.
"Things have happened since then, particularly as a result of the riots and the burnings, particularly the additional security that had to be thrown up, and just the way in which Woomera, the detention centre, I believe now occupies a place in Australia's thinking that really does affect the uses to which it can be put."
AAP