THE detained asylum seekers have stopped their hunger strike.

Twenty nine Sri Lankan refugees being held at Harmondsworth refugee detention centre had refused food and water for nearly a month. They were persuaded to stop their protest last week, but still face deportation back to Sri Lanka.

The detainees are Tamils, an ethnic minority group in Sri Lanka. They do not want to return home because they fear that they will be persecuted and possibly murdered.

Harrow councillor Thaya Idaikkadar, a fellow Tamil, went to the centre last Wednesday and persuaded the detainees to come off hunger strike. But he is still not happy about their treatment by the government.

He said: "I went and got them to stop hunger striking, but the authorities are still deporting people back to Sri Lanka."

Detainees from the centre are being taken to the airport, and either removed from the plane at the last minute, or deported back to Sri Lanka However, an Immigration and Asylum tribunal adjudged last Monday that a Sri Lankan detainee, who has been refused asylum, would be "at real risk of torture by the Sri Lankan authorities" if he was forced to return.

The tribunal has issued this guidance to all immigration judges who hear asylum cases from Sri Lankan Tamils in the future.

The Home Office has argued that only senior members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an outlawed Tamil group in Sri Lanka, are at risk of persecution if deported.

A spokesman the Border and Immigration Agency confirmed that no one was on hunger strike at the centre, but said: "Voluntary returns are preferable to enforced returns but if people do not leave voluntarily, we will enforce their return.

"This is always done in the most sensitive way possible, treating those being removed with courtesy and dignity. Detention is an essential element in the effective enforcement of immigration control."