AKIPRESS.COM - Detainees set buildings alight and armed themselves with baseball bats in a riot at an Australian immigration facility on Christmas Island, people at the center said Monday, with officials admitting the situation was out of control, reported Naharnet.

The disturbance at the Indian Ocean island center comes after the unexplained death of an escaped asylum-seeker.

Detainees have complained about their treatment at the facility, which currently houses 203 men, among them asylum-seekers awaiting processing and non-citizens being deported because they have criminal convictions.

"Order or control hasn't been regained within the center," Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said.

He added that no injuries had been listed, no damage been done to the perimeter fence and no-one had since tried to escape.

The Department for Immigration and Border Protection described the incident as a "major disturbance" but denied there was a large scale riot.

The department declined to specify the number of staff that had been evacuated.

The trouble followed a peaceful protest by detainees on Sunday after the discovery of the body of an Iranian Kurdish asylum-seeker, named by Australian media as Fazel Chegeni, who had escaped.

Police are investigating the cause of death but Dutton, who was unable to confirm reports that the body was found at the base of a cliff, said he had been advised there were no suspicious circumstances.

Under Australia's hardline immigration policy, asylum-seekers arriving by boat are processed on isolated islands, rather than the mainland.

As well as asylum seekers, Christmas Island's facility has increasingly been used to hold non-citizens awaiting deportation, including criminals after Canberra began canceling visas of those with criminal records.