SYDNEY, Jan 24: The Australian government, under pressure from human rights groups and amid reports of fresh suicide attempts by detainees, seems to have surrendered to the demands of Afghan asylum seekers and begun processing their asylum applications.

The asylum seekers had taken extreme measures like going on hunger strike, stitching their lips together and drinking shampoo and detergents, to show their frustration over a government decision to stop processing their asylum applications.

The government that had insisted it will not be influenced by hunger strikes, lips sewing and other self harming protests at Woomera Detention Centre in South Australia, has now conceded to their demands and announced that it will restart processing the claims of the asylum seekers.

The government had stopped processing their claim after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The face-saving move came after a government-appointed committee visited the centre on Tuesday and gave its recommendations to Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock. Mr Ruddock said the government has accepted the committee’s advice to restart the process and will make sure that detainees are told more about how their claims are being processed.

He says the processing of asylum applications had been delayed due to the changes in Afghanistan’s political situation.

The head of the committee and a former Immigration Minister, John Hodges, says its a big concession from the government. The committee will go to Woomera tomorrow and will meet the hunger strikers to tell them to end their protest in view of the government’s new decision.

The government has also released another group of detainees from the Woomera Detention Centre. According to an ABC report, Immigration Department has confirmed that 25 people, including 22 Iraqis, two Iranians and one Afghan, have been released from Woomera.

The Immigration Department has confirmed that two adults and a 16-year-old boy tried to hang themselves last night. The refugee groups are claiming as many as 20 people attempted to kill themselves last night. Another group had tried to take their lives after taking toxic substance two days ago.

Refugee lawyer for Woomera Detainees, Tarana Hassan, says the situation is still serious and any detainee may still succeed in taking to take his or her own life. She said that the hunge strike was continuing and they were taking only water to hold on.

“If there is no resolution to this, some body will die, they are holding out till Friday to try to find some resolution .... These people are not just bloody-minded, they want a result,” said Ms Hassan.

Today hundreds of people including teachers, nurses and union officials demonstrated in front of the federal government office building in Melbourne in sympathy of the hunger strikers at the Woomera Detention Centre. More than hundred demonstrators stormed the offices of the Immigration offices and clashed with police. Many protesters were sitting on the footpath with red ties around their mouth.

Natasha Scott Despja, the head of the Democratic Party, the third largest political force in Australia, went to Woomera to visit the detainees and blamed the government for the protest at the detention centre.

Those inside the Woomera Detention Centre, that hosts more than 800 detainees, say the situation is unspeakable. “You can not understand what’s going on inside the detention centre. I wish we had a camera to get the photo, to get the mood here ...its a bad bad situation,” An Iranian detainee told journalists today.

Agencies add: Refugees who sewed up the lips of children at Australia’s Woomera detention centre could be charged, officials said on Thursday.

Dean Brown, a minister in the South Australian state government, said a 12-year-old boy’s lips were sewn together, the stitches were removed at Woomera Hospital, and he was later found with his lips sewn again despite infections from the earlier wound.

Five children have been taken away from the camp where asylum seekers angry at the time taken to process visa applications have been on hunger strike for a week.