SYDNEY, March 8: The Woomera detention centre in South Australia, the scene of lip-stitching and other sadistic protests six weeks ago, turned into a graveyard when 15 Iraqi asylum seekers burried themselves in the ground.

Australia’sn immigration department has confirmed symbolic graves have been dug in protest and eight men were dug out and taken to hospital.

The Australian Broadcasting Commission has reported that some of those who have buried themselves in mock graves have also sewn their lips together. Four of them have lost consciousness and were taken for medical treatment, while two men have been admitted to a Woomera hospital.

A detainee said: “When some people moved from their graves, another one stayed instead in hole in ground and waiting for their death.”

An Iraqi detainee, Rahim, says: “They drag and they lean down and they hold. They dug the graves, there’s now 15 persons, they being down in the holes in the grave.”

He says detainees are buried in graves with only their faces uncovered. “There is a sign of their names and his number and just his face appears when you see the grave,” Rahim told ABC.

He also says 50 women and 70 men, all Iraqis, have begun hunger strike, while refugees’ lawyers are claiming 140 Iraqis are on hunger strike in two Woomera compounds.

The department of immigration said 143 Iraqi detainees had refused to eat on Thursday.

The Prime Minister of Australia, Mr John Howard, is unmoved by the new wave of protests and says hunger strikes or digging their own graves won’t make his government change its policy of keeping asylum seekers in detention centres.

Refugee advocates and detainees’ lawyers have criticized the slow process of decision-making that has created an unhealthy culture of protests. “There’s a culture at Woomera that it’s only if you self harm or do things to yourself that get attention.’’