A 26-year-old man has died while detained at Brook House immigration removal centre, private security company Serco has confirmed.
The Home Office has sent its condolences to the family and friends of the man, who died on Sunday at the centre near Gatwick Airport in West Sussex.
Activists from Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group reacted to the news by criticising Brook House, which is managed and operated by Serco, as “prison architecture”.
The group added: “No one should take their last breath there.
“We mourn that a young man died before he could be free.”
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The death comes almost a year after a 37-year-old Albanian man died after attempting suicide in November 2023 while he was detained at Brook House.
A public inquiry into the detention centre concluded migrants had been subjected to abuse.
The inquiry found there had been 19 incidents of mistreatment against detainees over a five-month period in 2017.
Inquiry chairwoman Kate Eves – appointed by the then Conservative government to lead the probe – called in September for a “reset” on the “inadequate” response to her recommendations.
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Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said: “We despair at reports that yet another person has died in the Brook House detention centre.
“Our hearts go out to his family, friends and the fellow detainees affected by this tragedy too.
“Brook House has gained notoriety for violence, racism and abuse. What part this may have in this man’s death we do not yet know, but these degradations derive from a wider failure to make a system respect human dignity and rights.
“Tragic incidents such as this emphasise why the government must bring humanity to the immigration system as much as any other policy area – people’s lives depend on it.”
