At a protest to welcome refugees in London last year (Picture: Guy Smallman)
Treated worse than animals and forced to sleep on the floor of tents as winter approaches without proper food or medical assistance while disease runs rampant. That’s not a description of a refugee camp in an impoverished country. It’s a picture of the hell endured by refugees in Kent’s Manston processing centre.
Keren and Abraham are 15 and 16 year old brothers from Eritrea. They’ve been in Britain for just a month. “We were in Manston for four days—we slept on the benches or on the floor,” they told Socialist Worker. “There were no showers or clothes. And there were so many people. It was crowded, and fights broke out.”
The home office wants to shed its responsibility for the brothers by claiming they are older than they say. Authorities’ refusal to believe them meant two unaccompanied children were trapped in these conditions alone, without support. Madhi arrived in Britain 18 months ago and was processed at Tug Haven, in Dover. A report last year revealed appalling conditions at camp.
Refugees were held in “unacceptable” conditions, and children suffered in “unsanitary and squalid” surroundings with a lack of medical care, it said. A year later, and that regime has been repeated in Manston. Madhi fled to Britain from Iran. He was smuggled to Turkey, walked to Greece, and jumped on a lorry to Calais in France and finally a boat to Britain.
“I was in the processing centre in Dover for more than three weeks,” he told Socialist Worker. “On the same day 800 people were also taken in. “We were kept in a tent. We had no clean clothes—it was horrible because our clothes were still wet. “The camp took away our phones to investigate smugglers but didn’t give them back.” Refugees trapped in the centre were not fed properly. “One day we were given a pizza—but that was split between three or four people. On other days, it was just biscuits,” Mahdi said.
“I slept on a thin roll up mattress on the floor. It was so crowded in there, I got no sleep.” Madhi explained that the distance between himself and the stranger next to him was just two centimetres. “In my sleeping area were around 140 people. In total there were two toilets for men and one for the women.”
It was not clear to the refugees why they were being held there—or how long for. “I had thousands of questions in my mind,” Madhi added. “What is the procedure? What is going to happen to me next? But I got no answers.”
Sheila is a Kurd from Iran who arrived by boat in Britain in September 2020. She was extremely ill when she arrived, but could get no medical help. “I had issues with my legs—I couldn’t walk,” she said. “I told them I couldn’t even stand up, but I was made to stand, being sick in the cold. We were left for such a long time, it was hours. Every time I tried to explain I was ignored.”
Once at the processing centre, Sheila was given a plastic mattress. “There were many families inside”, she said. “I only had the mattress to sit on—that was for seven days.
“The toilets were dirty with no toilet paper. For the first day we just had juice and biscuits.” “Mentally it was bad. The journey affected me so badly. We were freezing—we’d been at sea for 11 hours because we went in the wrong direction. I was scared and won’t ever forget that moment.
“When I arrived, I thought I’d be safe—I expected something completely different.” Sheila has now been stuck in a hotel in London for two years. Three weeks ago, she had an interview with Home Office officials—now she has to wait months, maybe even a year, for a decision on her status.
Jane is a refugee rights activist who managed to contact two refugees trapped in Manston last week. She has only sporadic contact but they told her how horrific conditions are. “So many people in the camp are sick—there’s no isolation for them,” she told Socialist Worker.
“Fights have broken out among women over resources for children. “And shoes and things are being stolen. The guards’ response has been, ‘Sort it among yourselves’. It’s like they’re enticing them to fight. I thought Penally Camp and Napier Barracks were bad—but this is on another scale.”
One refugee told Jane that two men near him had open wounds and sores, but staff had not isolated them or arranged medical assistance. “The Red Cross has apparently been in twice and only seen some women and children,” she said. Refugees are forced to wear wristbands with a number on them.
“They’re called by number,” Jane explained. One of the refugees asked the staff to call them by their name instead. They were told, “That’s what you’re known by from now on. We haven’t got time to learn everybody’s names in here.”
After leaving the processing centre, refugees are stuck in limbo relying on charities alone for clothes, food, money and legal advice. Reina and her mother Melisa fled Albania four months ago. “Life in Albania is no good. My dad told us he was going to kill us, and my mum was given no help,” said Reina.
“We spent four nights in France and when we crossed the water our boat broke. I thought we were going to die.” The two are given just £8 a week to live on. “We can’t go anywhere. We live in a small hotel room—just with a bed and toilet,” she said.
“We can’t cook for ourselves or afford to go anywhere. I’ve also been having tooth problems. When I ring the home office, they say wait—nothing is done and we’re given no help.” Ministers claim that Albanians are “flooding” the Channel—and that they are not proper refugees. But the whole concept of ‘real’ and ‘fake’ refugees is designed to prop up the cruel migration system. It justifies their system of borders and checks that forces people into dangerous crossings and camps.
Laila and her son Hassan left Iran 15 months ago. Hassan, who is in year six at school, translated for his mother. “We were stuck in the water for nearly 24 hours. We called for help, and it took so long for them to come,” he told Socialist Worker. “It was very scary and cold.” Hassan explained that they were taken to a hotel in south London, and then moved across to central London. “We don’t know why, and we weren’t told anything about being moved,” he said.
“We don’t have a fridge or freezer. The food is so bad—we’re never given enough and my stomach always hurts. My mum wants to go to college to learn English but keeps being told places are full. With just £8 we can’t even go out for the day. Having a proper house to live in would help so much.”
Madhi is in a similar situation. After leaving the processing centre he was kept in another centre for two weeks, and then a hotel room for five days with a stranger. Now he is in a hotel in east London. “For more than a year breakfast has been a croissant and cake.
And the dinner is smelly—I never eat the chicken because it doesn’t look right. The portions aren’t enough anyway, and if you come for food after the kitchen closes you don’t get anything. “I can’t live on £8 a week—but I’ve had to survive like this for over a year. But it’s better than what my situation was in Iran. I’m 25-years-old—all I want to do is go to college and find a job.”
The conditions at Manston, and an array of similar camps, are no accident. The Tories want to put refugees through hell in the hope that it discourages others from trying to come to Britain. It’s also why they dream about fights filled with migrants arriving in Rwanda from Britain.
The overcrowding, the squalor and the inhumanity are a deliberate policy. And they serve an additional purpose. When Suella Braverman talked recently of a migrant “invasion”, it was part of an appeal to rally the hard right.
Her supporters have calculated that images of prison camp conditions and the harrowing testimony of inmates shows their supporters that they are being “tough on illegal migrants”. And that’s why home office minister Chis Philp last week doubled down on the government’s policy.
He said asylum seekers had “a bit of cheek” for complaining about conditions they are held in. “They don’t even have to come here,” his rant continued. Rallying the right inside the Tories is planned to help Braverman as she battles to stay in office—and distract us from the Tories’ failures. But it is not only MPs and Tory supporters that have answered her dog-whistle call.
The signal was also received by the fascist right that has its own way to solve the refugee “problem”. When Tommy Robinson-supporting Andrew Leak launched his firebombs at the migrant processing centre in Dover last month he was clear about his mission.
“I will end illegal immigration” read one of his final tweets before his attack. Tory racist opportunism not only creates misery for refugees. It has opened the door for people that aim to go far further in their war than simply speeches.
Thousands of residents in London have been without water for months
The climate crisis is impossible to ignore
The human cost of the heatwaves are higher than the temperature
Divide and rule was used to undermine struggle
