26-year-old man dies at Brook House immigration deportation center

Private security company Serco confirmed that a 26-year-old man had died while being held at Brook House immigration detention center.

The Home Office has sent condolences to the family and friends of the man who died on Sunday at a facility near Gatwick Airport in West Sussex.

Activists from Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group reacted to the news by criticizing Brook House, managed and operated by Serco, as “prison architecture”.

The group added: “No one should take their last breath there.

“We mourn that a young man died before he could be free.”

The death comes almost a year after a 37-year-old Albanian man died after attempting suicide in November 2023 while being held at Brook House.

A public inquiry into the detention center found that migrants were victims of violence.

The investigation found that there were 19 cases of ill-treatment of detainees in five months in 2017.

The inquiry’s chairwoman Kate Eves – appointed by the then Conservative government to lead the inquiry – called in September for a “reset” to the “inappropriate” response to her recommendations.

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s director for refugees and migrants, said: “We are devastated by reports that another person has died at Brook House detention center.

“We wholeheartedly sympathize with his family, friends and fellow prisoners who were also affected by this tragedy.

“Brook House has become notorious for violence, racism and abuse. We do not yet know what part this may have played in this man’s death, but these degradations result from a broader failure to create a system that respects human dignity and rights.

“Tragic incidents like this underscore why the government must include humanity in the immigration system as much as in any other policy area – people’s lives depend on it.”