Asylum seekers at the Manston immigration center in central London were left without accommodation or warm clothing by the Home Office as officials tried to reduce acute overcrowding, The Guardian can reveal .
A group of 11 asylum seekers from Manston were stranded at Victoria train station on Tuesday evening without a place to stay, without winter coats, many of them wearing flip-flops, according to volunteers from the ‘homeless charity Under One Sky, which provided them with an emergency. food and clothing supplies.
“They were stressed, disturbed and completely disoriented,” said Danial Abbas, a volunteer with the charity. The group, from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, some of them wrapped in blankets for warmth, were confused about what to do, he said. “They were also very hungry.”
Migrants who stayed in London. Photography: Daniel Abbas
About 50 asylum seekers from Kent were also dropped off from a bus by Victoria bus station at about 11pm on Saturday, according to a witness. “They were still on the street at midnight, trying to figure out what to do, where to go. They had no money, they hadn’t even been told where they were,” said the witness, an Afghan asylum seeker, who asked not to be named. He has been staying at a nearby hostel for the past 14 months and has seen them arrive. “I was shocked. I tried to help; I showed them where to get free wifi, where to sit and warm up at the station.”
Hundreds of asylum seekers have been quickly moved from Manston camp in the past two days amid strong criticism of overcrowding conditions at the immigration centre, where around 4,000 people were being held at one site this weekend designed for 1,600.
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said the number of people in Manston had fallen substantially on Tuesday, but admitted on Wednesday evening there were still around 3,500 in the centre. Appearing on ITV, he told Robert Peston: “We immediately caught on when we appreciated the scale of the challenge at the weekend, it’s coming down very quickly now and I’m hoping we’ll get down to an acceptable level in about seven days.”
The 11 men who became homeless on Tuesday told charity volunteers they had been driven from Kent to London on Tuesday afternoon as part of a larger group of around 40 asylum seekers. Other members of their group had family or friends they were able to contact and stay with, but 11 were stuck around the station with nowhere to spend the night.
One of the men, a 29-year-old economics student from Iraq, said he had been held in Manston for 21 days after arriving in the UK by boat. “There were a lot of people there. They gave food, but only a little,” he said. He said he was told on Tuesday afternoon that he was being taken to London. “We were told to go to our families or friends. I don’t have any family in the UK,” he said.
Those who remained in London had paper wristbands. Photography: brochure
When they got to London he told the driver he had nowhere to go but was asked to get off the bus. He had no money of his own and the Ministry of the Interior had not given him any funds. “I asked what I should do at night, it’s cold. He said: you have to go.”
Volunteers from the charity, which distributes food to homeless people on the streets of London, took asylum seekers to Primark and spent more than £450 buying them gloves, thermal jackets, shoes and socks . Volunteers called the Home Office, which said there had been an “operational error”. At 1am on Wednesday, eight hours after the station had been abandoned on the street, two taxis were dispatched to Victoria to pick up the 11 men and drive them to Norwich, where they were put up in a hotel.
A British Transport Police spokesman said staff responded to reports of a group of asylum seekers seeking help at Victoria station at 10.33pm on Tuesday. “Officers engaged and liaised with charity partners, railway staff and government colleagues to help them find accommodation for the night,” they said.
Under One Sky’s Abbas said the unloading of people at the station may not have been a one-off incident. “A British Transport Police officer in Victoria told me this has been happening since Saturday – coachloads of refugees are just pouring in here,” Abbas said.
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The witness who saw the busload of asylum seekers being dropped off at Victoria station on Saturday night said there were no Home Office staff to help.
He said most of the asylum seekers appeared to be from Afghanistan and told him they had spent the past 10 days in a Home Office camp near Dover. “Each of them had a blue plastic bag full of their belongings and a paper tag around their wrists. They were freezing and hungry. I went to the corner store and bought them some cakes. I heard pity for them – they were asking me where they should go,” he said.
Some had relatives in Birmingham and Manchester, he said, but did not have the money to travel there. Others were able to call friends in London and left the station area to meet them. By 1 a.m., they were all gone. “They said they were told there was no room for them in any hotel or hostel. I don’t know where they all went,” the witness said.
Clare Moseley, from refugee charity Care4Calais, said the Home Office had a duty to house asylum seekers who did not have the means to support themselves. “They shouldn’t leave people on the street. We heard of another case of someone being driven from Manston to Southampton where there was no hotel room for them. It’s absolutely chaotic and horrible.”
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the government was facing a “serious and growing problem”, adding: “We will make sure we control our borders and we will always do it fairly and compassionately, because this it’s right. “
But Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “People are not being supported with dignity, humanity and compassion.”
The Home Office has been contacted for comment.