LONDON: Britain is locking up thousands of asylum seekers completely unnecessarily, causing them mental trauma and breaching their human rights, Amnesty International said on Monday. The human rights lobby group said that as far as it could discover, Britain had locked up at least 25,000 asylum seekers — including women and children — in 2004 for prolonged periods.

“The human cost of this policy is frighteningly high,” Amnesty’s UK chief Kate Allen said.

“We found that languishing in detention with no end in sight had led to mental illness, self-harm and even to people trying to take their own life.”

—Reuters