SYDNEY, Jan 29: Eleven teenage asylum seekers at Woomera who had threatened to poison themselves by 5pm Australian time on Tuesday unless they are removed from detention centre, have extended the deadline for another 24 hours to allow the negotiators to resolve the matter.

An Afghan detainee from inside the detention centre, Hassan Varasi, told ABC about the extension of the suicide deadline. “Today I spoke with them... (they have) extended their time until tomorrow night,” he said.

In all 15 youths between the age of 12 and 17 on Monday threatened to drink poison or throw themselves off a razor wire fence if they were not removed from the detention centre. A lawyer of detainees at the Woomera Detention Centre, Rob McDonald, says 11 out of original 15 are still threatening to take their own lives.

Some Pakistanis are reported to be among the asylum seekers of the Woomera Detention Centre in South Australia, the scene of hunger strike, lip-sewing and other forms of self-harming protests, where an Iraqi boy tried to hang himself on Monday night.

A Melbourne newspaper, quoting official sources, reported on Monday that a group of 67 Woomera detainees, including several others believed to be responsible for inciting protests, would be deported as soon as the documentation process was complete. The report says the 67 deportees include Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians and Pakistanis.

The authorities at the Woomera Detention Centre, who have blocked information about the occupants of the centre and are keeping journalists away from the centre, were not forthcoming and refused to identify the detainees and their nationalities.

Meanwhile, an official of the Pakistan consulate denied there was any Pakistani among the asylum seekers in any of the detention centres. “They could be Afghans carrying Pakistani travel documents, but we have no information of a Pakistani national among the detainees,” Consul-General of Pakistan Munawar Abbas told Dawn.

A group of nine other unaccompanied children have already been removed from the Woomera Detention Centre to alternative care after fears that they will harm themselves.

A government advisory committee on detainees, that is trying to negotiate with the government and the hunger strikers, was locked with the detainees in discussions and was pursuing them to end their protest to win concessions from the government.