Police deal with ‘disturbance’ involving armed detainees at London immigration center

By Amy Cassidy, CNN

Police were deployed to an immigration center near London Saturday following what they called a “disturbance.”

Detainees inside the facility had armed themselves with knives and lumps of wood, CNN has learned.

A spokesperson from the UK’s Home Office told CNN Saturday there had been a power outage at the Harmondsworth immigration removal center “and work is currently underway to resolve this issue.”

They added “the welfare and safety of staff and individuals detained at Harmondsworth is our key priority.”

Officers arrived at the Harmondsworth facility on Friday evening to “provide support to staff dealing with a disturbance” and remain there as of Saturday morning, a spokesperson for the city’s Metropolitan Police told CNN.

There have been no reported injuries from the site, CNN has learned.

The UK’s Home Office said people are being moved to other facilities while engineers fix the power and repair damage.

It comes as the Home Office is under fire for its treatment of migrants and asylum-seekers, with London Mayor Sadiq Khan calling for an “urgent review.”

A separate incident in which a man threw “crude incendiary devices” at Western Jet Foil Home immigration center in the southern English port of Dover last Sunday was motivated by extremism, police said.

The UK’s counter-terrorism police department (CTPSE) said in a statement Saturday that the attack was motivated by a “terrorist ideology.”

“After considering the evidence collected so far in this case, whilst there are strong indications that mental health was likely a factor, I am satisfied that the suspect’s actions were primarily driven by an extremist ideology. This meets the threshold for a terrorist incident,” said Tim Jacques, Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing.

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CNN’s Sarah Diab contributed to this report.