Campsfield House detainees are reported to be even more depressed after it was announced another Zimbabwean detainee will be deported -- despite an ongoing hunger strike.

Absolme Mashamba, who is currently in Campsfield House detention centre in Kidlington, has been told he will be sent back to Zimbabwe next Tuesday, even though many inmates are refusing food and water in protest against asylum seekers being deported to the troubled nation.

Roderick Chitezeze, a spokesman for the detainees, said: "People are really depressed, some of them are no longer drinking or eating. He is preparing to die there. He told me if he had a television cable he would kill himself, as he would rather do that than go to Zimbabwe."

Yesterday, members of the Campaign to Close Campsfield gathered outside Campsfield House to continue their demonstrations in support of the hunger strikers.

The strikers claim they have not been eating for nine days and on Tuesday said they were now refusing to drink water. They say the next stage would be sewing up their lips.

Tensions are running high at Campsfield after an 18-year-old Turkish man, Ramazon Komluca, committed suicide in the early hours of Monday morning, and an Iraqi man swallowed a needle, allegedly while he was trying to sew his lips together.

Teresa Hayter, of the Campaign to Close Campsfield, said: "I think it's completely and utterly outrageous to deport somebody to Zimbabwe especially with all the public concern.

"The Government just ignores the weight of public opinion. This is a country where human rights are abused. Britain itself constantly criticises the human rights situation in Zimbabwe."

She said she believed that campaigners from Oxford and London would try to stop Mr Mashamba from being deported by following him to the airport and leafleting airport staff.

Mr Chitezeze, of the United Network for Detained Zimbabweans in the UK, said the group was preparing evidence showing how Zimbabweans had been tortured or killed after being deported from British asylum centres. They hope to present this evidence to the Government.

Reports have been circulating in the press that deportations to Zimbabwe before the G8 congress have been frozen. But yesterday the Home Office denied this.

Darcy Mitchell, a Home Office spokesman, said: "That information is not correct."