Juan Mendez, a UN special rapporteur, told Australia's Radio National Thursday that video footage showing mistreatment of six aboriginal boys at the Don Dale Youth Detention Center indicated a "very worrisome development that can amount to torture."

He said there was no question that very severe pain and suffering had been inflicted that could "amount to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

The video, filmed between 2010 and 2014, showed guards tear-gassing boys aged between 13 and 17 years in their cells, and strapped to chairs with hoods over their heads and being beaten.

One of the detainees could be heard saying he could not breathe after one teen escaped his cell. Officials had claimed that the teens had staged a riot.

A guard was shown hurling a 13-year-old across the room onto his bed.

The footage was aired on Monday by the ABC television program "Four Corners."

Australia's diverse Aboriginal communities make up just three percent of the continent's population but 27 percent of those in its prisons.

Not aware, says NT head

Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles (pictured above center), who sacked his corrections minister John Elferink on Tuesday, insisted that he had not been aware of the extent of the abuse.

"I sat and watched the footage and recognized horror through my eyes," Giles told reporters in Darwin.

Calls for wider inquiry

Rights groups have called for the royal commission launched by Turnbull to be conducted nationwide-wide into treatment of juvenile detainees.

Prime Minister Turnbull rejected that Wednesday, saying such a probe would drag on too long and would not deliver answers "you need in respect to the Northern Territory."

Previous report ignored?

A commissioner's report into some incidents in 2015 found fault with guards' behavior but its findings were not acted upon.

Former workers in youth detention centers in neighboring Queensland state said they had previously been sacked for speaking out about violence against minors.

Disadvantaged

In the Northern Territory 94 percent of juvenile inmates have aboriginal origins.

Amnesty International said Aboriginal children are 26 times more likely to be jailed than their non-indigenous counterparts and face poor educational prospects, high unemployment and substance abuse.

ipj/kl (AFP, dpa, Reuters)