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More than forty people, many of them Iraqis who were on last week's returned charter flight, have gone on hunger strike to demand their immediate release from detention.

The hunger strikers are being held in Brook House immigration removal centre, near Gatwick airport. As well as Iraqis, people from Afghanistan, Algeria, Nigeria and Jamaica have been refusing food since Sunday.

In a statement, the hunger strikers said: 'We are going on hunger strike until they release us. We have been in detention centres for months and years and our cases have not been handled professionally. Most of us are being falsely removed to countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, which are clearly war zones. Most of us have families in the UK. What are we supposed to do? Leave them behind or take them with us right into the middle of a war zone to be killed? The immigration laws and policies are clearly not fair and the only way you will find this out is by visiting us here in detention.'

A failed expulsion attempt | Assault allegations | First attempted deportation to Baghdad