A convicted child molester from Afghanistan who set himself on fire at WA’s Yongah Hill Immigration Detention Centre has died.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection confirmed a man who self-harmed on Tuesday night at the facility, 100 kilometres east of Perth, died in hospital last night.

The ABC has been told Ali Jafarri was found barely alive by detainees and Serco guards inside the toilet of his room in the centre’s Eagle compound.

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He is believed to have wrapped a blanket around his body and doused himself with an accelerant before setting himself on fire.

Two guards who helped him were also injured.

In a statement, the department said it extended its “deepest sympathies to the individual’s family and friends”.

The statement said WA Police were now investigating the death.

Refugee visa cancelled after child sex offences

Jafarri was granted refugee status but had his permanent protection visa cancelled after being convicted of six counts of an indecent act with a child.

Those offences occurred after Jafarri was released into the Geelong community on a protection visa, after stints in immigration detention at Christmas Island, Curtin in the Kimberley, and in Perth.

Jafarri also pleaded guilty in the Victorian County Court last year to one federal charge of accessing child pornography material using a carriage service.

He had been viewing 27 images and videos of teenage boys and girls on his laptop at the St Kilda Public Library between July 2012 and May 2014, when he was arrested by detectives.

Jafarri could not be deported to Afghanistan because he had been recognised as a refugee.

Centre conditions questioned

Refugee advocates have called for the circumstances in which Jafarri self-harmed to be investigated.

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said Jafarri had self-harmed before and should have been in a mental health hospital, not a detention centre.

“It’s absolutely extraordinary that anyone could find the materials that are necessary to set fire to themselves,” Mr Rintoul said.

“But what makes it even more disturbing is that this is not the first time that this detainee had attempted self-harm.

– ABC