Japan says Nigerian died of starvation after immigration hunger strike

Tokyo, Oct 1 (AFP/APP):Japanese immigration authorities said Tuesday that a Nigerian man who died in detention in June starved to death while on hunger strike, in the first officially acknowledged case of its kind.

“An autopsy has found the man died of starvation,” an official at the Immigration Services Agency told AFP. The man in his forties, whose name has been withheld, died on June 24 after falling unconscious at Omura Immigration Center and being taken to a hospital in southern Japan.

He had been on a hunger strike for at least three weeks to protest being detained by immigration authorities for over three years, lawyers said.

It was the 14th death in Japanese immigration detention facilities since 2007, according to the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.