Sydney woman Nakita Regan has told SBS News she believes her partner Ricardo Young, 30, was one of the men taken to Western Australia following a riot at the Christmas Island detention centre.
Ms Regan said she has been unable to confirm his whereabouts through the Immigration Department or the prison in Western Australia.
She said the last time she heard from her partner was early on Tuesday morning.
"I was in contact with [Border Force] that night," she said.
"I told them that there [were] 15 Kiwis inside blue-compound. They asked me to contact them and tell them that [Border Force] will be entering the compound.
"Ricardo was with an elderly Samoan gentleman and he was extremely distressed and in panic."
Ms Regan said has sent SBS recordings of phone calls in which she says her partner is shot by a rubber bullet as Border Force officers entered the detention centre.
In the recordings an obviously upset Ms Regan tries to speak to Young and an alarm can be heard sounding in the background.
She said Young was not involved in the riot, but was trying to help shelter other detainees from the unrest.
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Lawyers for Young say he was transferred into immigration detention earlier this year from Sydney’s Silverwater prison after serving a two-year sentence for aggravated assault and robbery.
They say, although he has lived in Australia since childhood and has a young child with Ms Regan, his visa was cancelled under recent changes to the immigration character test.
The riot was sparked by the death of an Iranian detaine who escaped the compound on the weekend and later died.
Seven men - five New Zealanders, a Tongan and an Afghan - involved in the unrest were transferred to a Perth prison overnight and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has indicated more detainees could be moved.
"We're just not going to tolerate this kind of behaviour," he told Sydney radio 2GB.
It's believed the first group are mostly convicted criminals whose visas have been cancelled.
The immigration department initially estimated the damage bill at about $1 million.
But Mr Dutton said the figure had been upgraded to $10 million.
He also confirmed detainees broke into a medical clinic, removing drugs, and a storage area for gardening equipment.
"These people will have to pay for the damage they have caused through the criminal courts," he said.
Mr Dutton has spoken to Serco, the company managing the centre, amid reports guards in the main control room didn't recognise the perimeter alarm which sounded when the detainee got out.
His absence wasn't detected for two hours.
Mr Dutton said Border Force officers were examining what went wrong.
"Clearly, at a management level, we need to get an understanding how it is they are going to guarantee this sort of incident doesn't occur again," he said.
"It's unacceptable."
- with AAP
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