Thursday, October 24

Bibby Stockholm: Asylum seekers face withdrawal of presidency help if they do not board barge

Asylum seekers who didn’t get on the Bibby Stockholm in the present day have till Tuesday to board the vessel or face having their authorities help cancelled, Sky News can reveal.

While 15 individuals did board the barge docked in Portland, Devon, round 20 individuals didn’t take up the supply made on what the federal government has known as a “no-choice basis”.

Sky News has seen a letter despatched by the Home Office to a kind of individuals who stayed on dry land.

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A letter sent to an asylum seeker who refused to get on the Bibby Stockholm
Image:
A letter despatched to an asylum seeker who refused to get on the Bibby Stockholm

A tug boat passes the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge at Portland Port in Dorset, which will house up to 500 people. The Home Office have said around 50 asylum seekers would board the Bibby Stockholm, with the numbers rising to its maximum capacity over the coming months, despite safety concerns raised by some of the county's Conservative MPs and locals. Picture date: Thursday August 3, 2023.
Image:
The first individuals boarded the Bibby Stockholm in the present day

It states: “Arrangements have been made so that you can journey out of your lodging… to different lodging on the Bibby Stockholm in Portland on 7 August 2023.

“On 7 August you did not take up the offer of this accommodation.

“Please take into account this letter a second notification to alter your lodging with preparations in place to maneuver you to the Bibby Stockholm, Portland on 8 August 2023.

“Accommodation is offered on a no-choice basis. Where asylum seekers fail to take up an offer of suitable accommodation without a reasonable explanation, there should be no expectation that alternative accommodation will be offered.

“If you don’t journey tomorrow, on 8 August 2023, preparations for ceasing the help that you’re receiving from the Home Office might start.”

It is just not clear whether or not this implies the individual in query could be left homeless.

The Home Office wrote to an asylum seeker who did not board the Bibby Stockholm

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Earlier, Cheryl Avery, the director of asylum lodging on the Home Office, stated: “So we successfully onboarded the first cohort today and there are 15 people on board.

“We have had a couple of challenges, however that is a part of an ongoing structured course of to deliver a cohort of as much as 500 individuals on board.

“There have been some challenges, some minor legal challenges, and I can’t go to the detail of those, but accommodation is offered to all individuals on a no-choice basis – so we are looking at how we manage that going forward.”

The Care4Calais group says about 20 asylum seekers didn’t board the barge as a result of their transfers have been “cancelled” resulting from authorized challenges.

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Analysis: The affect of the barge

The charity claimed solicitors raised considerations concerning the suitability of the lodging for individuals with disabilities, psychological and bodily well being issues, in addition to those that had fled torture and persecution.

Care4Calais chief government Steve Smith stated: “None of the asylum seekers we are supporting have gone to the Bibby Stockholm today as legal representatives have had their transfers cancelled.

“Amongst our shoppers are people who find themselves disabled, who’ve survived torture and fashionable slavery and who’ve had traumatic experiences at sea. To home any human being in a ‘quasi floating jail’ just like the Bibby Stockholm is inhumane. To try to achieve this with this group of individuals is unbelievably merciless. Even simply receiving the notices is inflicting them a substantial amount of nervousness.”

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said: “It appears there’s nothing this authorities will not do to make individuals in search of asylum really feel unwelcome and unsafe on this nation.

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“Reminiscent of the prison hulks from the Victorian era, the Bibby Stockholm is an utterly shameful way to house people who’ve fled terror, conflict and persecution.”

Sky News has approached the Home Office for remark.

Content Source: information.sky.com