Britain's asylum system is under renewed attack as Kurdish Turks mourn the death of a teenager who took his own life after months in limbo at a detention centre.

Ramazan Camlica, 19, had been refused bail three times and held in detention for at least five months before he was found hanged at Campsfield House in Oxfordshire, early on Monday. Friends said he had been at the Campsfield detention centre for so long that he was awarded his own room, which gave him the opportunity to hang himself from the hinge mechanism at the top of his door.

He is thought to have been depressed by prolonged uncertainty over his future, a long-term health problem, the prospect of being forced into the Turkish army once deported and by the death of his mother.

Details of Mr Camlica's case surfaced as dozens of Zimbabweans said they would step up a hunger strike in protest at their own, imminent deportation. The decision to send scores of Zimbabweans back to Robert Mugabe's regime left Tony Blair facing a backlash, with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the former Labour leader Lord Kinnock joining the protests.

Dr Rowan Williams said it would be "deeply immoral" to send failed claimants back to a country where they could face persecution and torture. Lord Kinnock said it would be better to let "a couple of dozen" unjustified claimants remain in Britain than risk sending back people who needed protection.

Zimbabweans at Campsfield said they had been told that the Government has delayed any further deportations for two weeks - a move that would forestall the prospect of Tony Blair hosting the G8 summit, which will focus on Africa, while dozens of Africans are on strike in Britain at his Government's policy.

But Crispen Kulinji, a member of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change, who has best articulated the battle against the decision to lift a ban on deportations to Zimbabwe, told The Independent last night that the hunger strike - now in its sixth day - would still go on.

Kurdish community leaders in Britain are determined that the plight of the Zimbabweans should not obscure the case of Mr Camlica, whose period of detention at Campsfield (anything between five and seven months, according to the various estimates of his friends) is considered inordinate by campaigners, who say only those facing imminent deportation are supposed to be detained.

The Home Office would not disclose details of Mr Camlica's death or confirm his identity yesterday. But his friends said the tall, slim teenager had used two belts to hang himself. He fled Turkey last year, fearing the prospect of serving in the army of a country which has denied Kurdish autonomy, according to one of his fellow countrymen. He gave no hint of his intentions when he stayed up on Sunday night, listening to Kurdish and English music in a friend's room. He bade his friends goodnight at around midnight but at breakfast the following morning they were told he had died - apparently at around 4am.

He is the fifth asylum-seeker in the past 12 months to have taken his life while in detention.

Questions about Campsfield's ability to handle vulnerable detainees, many of them facing language barriers, were raised last November in a prisons inspectorate report which called for better care plans for those on suicide watch and improved monitoring systems for those in isolation and segregation units. "Detainees at risk of self-harm could not be observed through the doors in the isolation unit where they were held; this had already resulted in a near-fatality," said the chief inspector of prisons, Anne Owers.

Sarah Cutler, policy and research officer for the Bail for Immigration Detainees group, said: "Asylum-seekers find the onus is on them to prove they should not be detained but we believe there should be an onus on the immigration service to know when there is a threat to life."

As 20 demonstrators mounted a protest outside Campsfield House yesterday, the establishment was also investigating how another of the centre's inmates, an Iraqi, managed to swallow a needle in another apparent suicide attempt. He was treated in hospital and has survived.

Meanwhile, the hunger strike at the centre remained in full swing, led by Mr Kulinji. Campaigners say around 60 people remain on hunger strike at detention centres across Britain, including 35 at Harmondsworth in west London, 18 at Colnbrook near Heathrow and half a dozen at Campsfield. The Home Office said the total figure was only 44.

The Government has been at pains to show that its tough policy on immigration has led to a fall in asylum-seekers. But ministers are less open about the rising number of cases of forced deportations of refugees to countries, such as Sudan and Somalia, which have questionable human rights records.

Refugee and civil liberties groups do not believe that in most of these cases the human rights environment has improved to justify this rise in forced removals. And despite Home Office denials, campaigners for refugees say that they are seeing rising numbers of women and children being picked up for deportation before their legal options have been exhausted.

Stephen Bowen, campaigns director at Amnesty International UK, said last night: "The Government's obsession with being 'tough' on asylum must not lead to people at risk being returned to the firing line. Those whose asylum claims have been dismissed should only be returned when this can be done safely and with dignity."

Mr Blair argues that halting Zimbabwean deportations could send a signal around the world "that Britain is open for business" for asylum-seekers.

Asylum-seekers

Ramazan Camlic, 19, Kurdish Turk

Ramazan Camlica paid £12,000 for a new life in Britain to escape the sense of persecution he felt as a Kurd living in the Turkish city of Gaziantep in eastern Anatolia.

But within hours of his arrival in the country, Mr Camlica was in custody and he soon wound up at Campsfield House detention centre in Oxfordshire, where he was detained for seven months.

On Monday, after his application for bail was rejected for a third time, he took his own life there.

Mr Camlica, 19, was one of the youngest detainees at Campsfield (pictured above) and with his easy, sociable manner made friends with half a dozen fellow Kurds.

His mother died two years ago and he was worried about the apparent loss of his £12,000. He was also suffering some kind of testicular complaint, which required an operation.

"The uncertainty killed him," said Mr Camlica's friend, Murht Oruc, 25, who remains at Campsfield. "There are too many people stuck in here for four or five months like that, in limbo."

Ian Herbert

Hatem Hussain, cattle farmer, 25, from Darfur

When Hatem Hussain arrived in Khartoum after his asylum application was rejected, he was accused of being a spy, tortured, gassed and beaten up, without even leaving the airport. After only 24 hours in Sudan, he was put on another plane and dispatched back to Britain.

Even before his ordeal at Khartoum airport, Mr Hussain, 25, a cattle farmer from the Fur tribe, had suffered at the hands of Sudanese government forces and Arab militias in the Darfur region, where an estimated 120,000 to 300,000 people have died and 2.5 million been driven from their homes. Figures for asylum-seekers from Sudan have risen from 655 in 2002 - the year Mr Hussain arrived - to 930 in 2003 and 1,310 last year. Some 220 people were returned last year.

Mr Hussain fled after his village was burnt down and his parents and brothers killed. In 2003, his application for asylum was rejected and he was put on a plane to Khartoum, which the Home Office maintains is a safe destination. He said: "When the plane landed, the police accused me of being a spy because I was from Darfur. They bound my hands and legs and tied me up, hung me by my wrists and ankles from a ceiling fan. After about six minutes, I started to scream. They brought me down and questioned me again. Four people took me to another office and started beating me everywhere.''

He says he was put in a room filled with gas, which made him vomit, and interrogated while being held in a chair which had straps for the chest, wrists and ankles. Eventually, he was put back on a plane to London. "They said,'We have your details; if you come back we will kill you straight away.' ''

Mr Hussain is living in Leeds and awaiting a Home Office decision on his second application for asylum.

Terry Kirby

Crispen Kulinji, 33, from Zimbabwe

Life in the Campsfield House detention centre may be the calm before the storm for Crispen Kulinji, a member of the Movement for Democratic Change, which opposes Robert Mugabe's regime. Two years ago in Harare he was beaten by Mugabe's soldiers and given electric shocks that have left him scarred. His mother was tortured and

his sister beaten so badly, he says, that she is still fighting for her life.

Mr Kulinji, 33, was due to be deported to Malawi at the weekend, but after protests officials agreed to delay removals for two weeks. He claims Mugabe's links with Malawi make it no safe haven for him. "The two-week hold on deportations does create a little relief," he said. "But it's only a delay. Our hunger strike will go on here in the hope that we can make our situation known."

After his beating Mr Kulinji was left for dead, but a passer-by found him and took him to hospital. He said: "I believed that God wanted me alive and that I was safe in Britain. Now that seems to have changed at a stroke."

Ian Herbert