Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre is an immigration detention centre at Milton Ernest in Bedfordshire, England. It opened on 19 November 2001 and was built to hold up to 900 people making it the largest immigration detention centre in Europe at the time. Since opening in 2001 has been dogged by controversy. In February 2002, it was gutted by a fire, reopening in September 2003. Throughout its operational period a number of hunger strikes and riots have occurred there.