By Bryn Griffiths

According to Human Rights Watch  more than 50 asylum seekers, most of them disabled people, are being ‘warehoused’ in a former care home in North Essex within the Tendring District without access to adequate support and services.

The Home Office opened the site, which can accommodate up to 77 people, in November 2022. Most people housed there, ranging from ages 20 to 74, have physical and sensory disabilities. Many require assistive devices, including wheelchairs and crutches, medical assistance, or support with daily activities, like moving around or going outside. They have fled places such as Afghanistan and Sudan.

Colchester’s Refugee, Asylum, Seeker & Migrant Action (RAMA) are campaigning to address what local campaigners are calling the Tendring Neglect Emergency.  RAMA reported the heart-breaking case of Dina a 74-year-old Nigerian woman.  She was hit by a bus while visiting the UK in 2005. By the time she left hospital she had become an overstayer and had significant cognitive issues, she was unable to access support and was street homeless for years. She has huge gaps in her memory and will never lead a ‘normal’ life.

Dina has many medical issues after living a significant period of her life on the streets. She has fatty liver, diabetes, thyroid problems and has been told clearly that without an appropriate diet she will be very unwell. She gets, as does every asylum seeker in initial accommodation, £9 a week.

With this she goes to all the supermarkets and gets the end of line vegetables. Because there are no cooking facilities, she ties these in plastic bags which she boils in her kettle for hours to make them soft. This is what she eats. She has lost significant weight. The effects of all the plastic on her system are yet undiscovered.

In the worst case of all, the Guardian reported that on 18th June an Iranian asylum seeker living in the property died. With restricted mobility due to strokes, doctors had repeatedly said he needed a wheelchair but he never received one. He is thought to have suffered a fatal stroke.

Human Rights Watch reported that the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the UK ratified in 2009, requires governments to ensure equal access to basic services such as medical care, mental health services and psychosocial support. This includes support for disabled people in situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies. Failure to do so is a form of discrimination.

We want the asylum seekers and disabled people ‘warehoused’ in Tendring to receive the humanitarian treatment they are entitled to under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  As deeply concerned citizens, we want action to support our fellow human beings housed in Essex.

The organisations responsible for these people and the failure to provide them with adequate care are the Home Office, Essex County Council, Clearsprings Ready Homes, a company which provides accommodation services to the Home office, Tendring District Council and the Essex Health and Wellbeing Board.

The North Essex campaign is being led by Colchester’s Refugee, Asylum Seeker and Migrant Action (RAMA), the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, Disabled People Against the Cuts and the Migrant Champions’ Network of Local Councillors.

Local and national campaigners are saying that public sector bodies must stop passing the buck and fulfil both their legal and moral responsibilities.  We have had welcome coverage and concern shown in the national media in the Guardian, ITV News and Human Rights Watch.  We saw that the ITV News on 26th June reported that asylum seekers with disabilities had been “left to rot”. We pledge not to let our new neighbours rot and we will not drop this matter until our councils and other public bodies fulfil their responsibilities. 

We know from the response to the Covid 19 crisis that the public sector knows how to deal with an emergency which has an impact on people’s well-being.   We will not rest until the public sector addresses the Tendring disabled asylum seekers emergency.

Please join the call for the public sector bodies campaign to end the Tendring Neglect Emergency. Join Colchester’s Refugee, Asylum, Seeker & Migrant Action (RAMA), the Joint Council on the Welfare of Immigrants, Disabled People Against the Cuts and the Migrants’ Champions Network of local councillors in signing this statement to insist the public sector does its job.

Click link to sign

Bryn Griffiths is a Colchester Labour Party Member. He spent 36 years working in local government and he is using his expertise to support the North Essex campaign to end the Essex Neglect Emergency. He writes in a personal capacity. Bryn is active on social media and you can follow him here https://linktr.ee/brynhgriffiths

Image: c/o Mike Phipps