Police and Home Office officials yesterday refused to name 14 foreign detainees still on the run from Campsfield House detention centre in Kidlington.

The 14 were among 26 convicted criminals who broke out of the centre, where they were being held before deportation to their own countries. All had served prison sentences for a variety of crimes, up to and including robbery.

The 26 men fled Campsfield just after 11pm on Saturday after a fire was started in a kitchen in a temporary building. Twelve were recaptured within a few hours.

A Home Office spokesman said: "All of the individuals are foreign national prisoners and we will be working with the police to recapture these individuals concentrating on the most serious first."

Thames Valley Police would only say it was working with other forces yesterday to hunt down the escapees.

And neither it or the Home Office would release the names or photographs of the escapees.

The breakout came less than two weeks after a report into the centre highlighted concerns about putting convicted criminals into Campsfield along with other foreign nationals awaiting deportation or decisions on their bids to stay in Britain.

Last night, Lynne Bromley, 51, of Evenlode Crescent, Kidlington, near the centre, called for pictures and details of those on the run to be released so that the public could help identify them.

She said: "It's shocking that the people who escaped have criminal records. Their identities should be revealed.

"As far as we knew the people in Campsfield were just waiting for their papers to be sorted."

Neighbour Charles Hunnisett, 34, added: "The police or the Home Office must have the identities of those who escaped and they should make them public as soon as possible. There is very real concern in Kidlington about these 14 convicted criminals on the run.

"I have a partner and a two-year-old son and I think it would be a good thing if police released the identities of these men because they could turn up anywhere.

"These prisoners will be hungry and frightened so their behaviour could be quite desperate."

Tensions inside Campsfield over conditions such as overcrowding have been increasing throughout 2007. Nine people were hurt after a riot in March, while last week detainees went on hunger strike.

Bob Hughes, a spokesman for the Campaign to Close Campsfield, said the detainees who had escaped could now "disappear" and find themselves working for a well established network of illegal employment.

"A lot of them will be going to lives of absolute slave labour. They will not be on anyone's official books and will live in very basic accommodation," he said. "I gather some of those who escaped are Vietnamese and some were probably injured when they escaped.

"British agriculture depends on gangs of illegals and unfortunately they have probably escaped from one kind of hell to another."

Yesterday one detainee calling himself Ash said the breakout occurred after a fire was started near some propane gas cannisters.