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Twenty-nine asylum seekers have died in Interior Ministry accommodations so far this year, five times more than those who have lost their lives on dangerous small-boat crossings of the Canal during the same period.
The Guardian obtained the figure in a freedom of information response from the Interior Ministry, which does not publish data on deaths. The identities of most of the deceased have not been made public and the circumstances of their deaths are unclear.
Many asylum seekers are in the 20 to 40 age group and are fit and healthy when they embark on what are often physically and emotionally exhausting trips to the UK.
One of the most recent deaths was that of Mohamed Camera, 27, from the Ivory Coast. He was found dead in his Home Office room at a North London hotel on November 9.
Camera had been complaining of back pain shortly before he died and had traveled through Libya on his way to the UK. He had recently arrived from Calais in a small boat.
One of his friends who traveled from Calais with him told The Guardian: “He was a nice and sociable person. I was smiling when we arrived in the UK because I believed that now I was going to have another life.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry confirmed the death and officials said they were “saddened” for it.
Another man, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah Alhabib, 41, who fled war-torn Yemen, was found dead in a Manchester hotel room on 6 August.
Alhabib traveled in a small boat with 15 other people from Yemen, Syria and Iran. After they were picked up by the Border Force, Home Office officials detained a group at the Yarl’s Wood Immigrant Deportation Center in Bedfordshire for three days before transferring them to the hotel in Manchester.
One of the asylum seekers who was on the boat with Alhabib told The Guardian at the time: “All of us on these trips, we have lost our country, our family, our future. When we got on the boat in Calais, we felt that the sea was the only place we could go ”.
An investigative jury concluded on November 30 that the death of Oscar Okwurime, a Nigerian man, as a result of a subarachnoid hemorrhage was deemed “unnatural” and that negligence contributed to his death.
The Scottish Refugee Council has called for a full and independent investigation of the 29 deaths. In September, a group of MPs from Glasgow also called for a fatal accident investigation into three deaths in the city.
The people who died were Mercy Baguma, from Uganda, who was found dead with her little boy by her side, Adnan Olbeh, from Syria, and Badreddin Abadlla Adam, who was shot and killed by police after stabbing six people, including A police officer.
Meanwhile, those who lost their lives in the Canal included Abdulfatah Hamdallah, a young Sudanese refugee, as well as a family of five – Rasul Iran Nezhad, Shiva Mohammad Panahi and their children Anita, nine, Armin, six and 15 months old – old Artin, who drowned trying to cross into the UK in October 2020.
Clare Moseley, founder of the charity Care4Calais, said: “It is shameful that more refugees are dying here in the UK, in Home Office accommodation, than in Calais or trying to cross the English Channel. Refugees are the most resistant people in the world. Many have crossed the Sahara desert and gone through the hell of Libya, facing unimaginable difficulties to get this far. But the way we treat them in this country is cruel.
“Our government does not give them the basics for life, like adequate food and clothing. He locks them in military barracks and keeps them isolated and depressed in hotels. It keeps them under constant threat of deportation, instead of processing their asylum applications promptly. “
Graham O’Neill, Policy Director for the Scottish Refugee Council, said: “After the recent tragedies in Glasgow, we are not surprised that many have died in the UK asylum support system.”
He added that there was no public policy from the Interior Ministry on deaths or support for the costs of the funeral or repatriation of the body, nor any discernible learning process to prevent sudden or unexplained deaths. “The Interior Ministry should rectify this and the selection committee for home affairs and the chief inspector should make sure they do so,” he said.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said: “We are always saddened to hear of the death of anyone in asylum accommodation. This can be due to a number of reasons, including natural causes or as a result of a terminal illness.
“The health and well-being of asylum seekers has been and will always be our priority. We will continue to work closely with a variety of organizations to provide support to those in need and, where necessary, we will always cooperate fully in any investigation into the cause of an individual death. “
The revelation comes as a higher court judge ruled on Monday that the Interior Ministry had failed to fulfill its obligations to protect the human rights of asylum-seekers against homelessness.
Judge Robin Knowles also found that the Home Office was responsible for the widespread failure to monitor and implement a £ 4 billion contract awarded to various private companies over a 10-year period, leading to illegal delays in the provision of accommodation. .
Home Office Freedom of Information responses obtained by the Scottish Refugee Council found that between January and March 2020, 83% of Home Office properties to accommodate asylum seekers were defective and 40% of the defects were so severe that they rendered the properties uninhabitable. .
The defects were identified by the Interior Ministry inspectors themselves.
