LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd April, 2021) UK prison, border and immigration inspectors issued a damning report criticizing the Home Office for its poor management of two disused military camps turned into makeshift sites to house hundreds of people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom, The Guardian newspaper reported on Friday.
Claiming to have seen the unpublished report and a letter sent to Home Minister Priti Patel by the outgoing chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Bolt, the news outlet said that both documents vindicate the serious concerns repeatedly raised by medical professionals, lawyers and human rights groups over the dire living conditions at Napier Barracks and Penally, two former army facilities located in Kent and Wales, respectively.
The report also confirms that the Home Office opened the sites despite recommendations by health authorities not to accommodate men in multi-occupancy building during a pandemic, which resulted in about 200 refugees contracting COVID-19 in one of the camps, the paper added.
In March, after visiting Napier Barracks and Penally, officials from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons had declared that both sites were run-down and unsuitable for accommodating people.
Back in December, several asylum seekers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity over fears of reprisals, told Sputnik that they were living in overcrowded conditions in Napier Barracks, with up to 28 men forced to share a dormitory, showers and toilets, and that immigration lawyers were not allowed into the premises.
According to reports, although the Wale's Penally camp has now been closed and the majority of people at the facility in Kent has been transferred to other government-run accommodations, the Home Office is planning to bring a new intake of asylum seekers to Napier Barracks.
