(London) Migrants remain held in “very poor” conditions after arriving in the UK despite promises of improvement from the Home Office, a report said Thursday as illegal Channel crossings hit records.
The Prisons Inspectorate as well as the Dover and Heathrow Independent Oversight Boards (IMBs), made up of volunteers tasked by the government to assess detention conditions, have visited several centers in the past three months.
Despite assurances received from previous inspections in 2020, only “limited progress” was noted, said Chief Prison Inspector Charlie Taylor. “Those detained, including a large number of unaccompanied minors, continued (in 2021) to suffer very poor conditions.”
The national president of the IMB, Anne Owers, alerted the Interior Ministry, deeming “urgent” measures necessary.
Their report indicates that families with young children had to spend more than 24 hours in tents near Dover, the first cross-Channel port. Women claiming to have been raped by smugglers have not been “not sufficiently supported”.
He also notes “significant” issues concerning the safety of unaccompanied minors who are “regularly detained” with adults with whom they have no connection.
During a visit to the center of Tug Haven, near Dover, in October, inspectors noted cold temperatures, especially in double-decker buses sometimes used for sleeping.
They found that a number of children, including infants, as well as potentially vulnerable adults, were staying overnight there, and some injuries (burns, cuts, bruises to the feet) were not being detected and treated. .
They cited the case of a “16 year old girl who had fuel burns on her legs and who had been in Tug Haven for two days with wet clothes”. When her injuries were finally spotted, “the seam of her clothes had become encrusted with the burns and a doctor reported that the girl was at risk of scarring for life. ”
Infrastructure and staff shortages have also been noted at a center at London Heathrow airport which detains migrants before their deportation from the United Kingdom.
Inspectors reported that one night four coaches arrived and migrants had to sleep on the floor without proper sanitation facilities. They qualified the conditions observed as “unacceptable and degrading but inevitable given the inability of the center to deal with arrivals”. “.