Conditions at a processing centre for asylum seekers who arrive on the Kent coast in small boats have been called unacceptable in a report from a watchdog that monitors the centre.
Representatives from the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMB) made a total of 85 visits in 2022 to three Home Office processing centres for small boat arrivals – Manston, Western Jet Foil and Kent Intake Unit – for its 2022 annual report into short-term holding facilities on the Kent coast. All three centres hit the headlines last year due to a variety of scandals and serious incidents.
The IMB report found that the facilities struggled to cope with an increasing number of arrivals and identified “serious concerns about the conditions in which people were being held, particularly at Manston”.
The report adds: “At Manston detained individuals were accommodated in marquees which we would describe as at best basic, at worst unsanitary and unacceptable.”
Western Jet Foil in Dover was subjected to a firebombing attack last November by Andrew Leak, 66, who police said was motivated by extreme rightwing terrorist ideology.
Kent Intake Unit, also in Dover, where lone child asylum seekers and families are processed after arriving on small boats, became embroiled in a row in July of this year after the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, was reported to have asked for cheerful cartoon murals for children to be painted over because they were “too welcoming”.
Manston, just outside Ramsgate, accommodates both adults and children who arrive on small boats in a series of marquees. There were many serious incidents there, including the death of a man who contracted diphtheria and a mass outbreak of diphtheria with 50 cases reported, although the Home Office initially said the number of these infections was “very small”.
Other reported problems include filthy conditions, claims of assaults by guards which were investigated by police, drug taking by guards and the mass dumping at a central London station of asylum seekers who were taken away from Manston.
According to the IMB, the army was drafted in to help with processing small boat arrivals, alongside Home Office officials and various contractors such as Mitie Care & Custody and Interforce.
Initially, small boat arrivals were sleeping on gym mats in the Manston marquees, but the Home Office decided they were a fire risk and removed them, leaving people to sleep on the cold floor with just blankets to lie on. While people were supposed to be held in Manston for just 24 hours, many were unlawfully detained there for longer, the longest known case being 43 days. The Home Office refused IMB requests to disclose the number of people unlawfully detained at Manston.
When four people drowned in the Channel last December the survivors who witnessed their fellow passengers drowning were taken straight to Manston for processing.
The report also highlights problems with clothing. Some asylum seekers had to share coats as there weren’t enough to go around, a practice which the IMB feared could have spread scabies, which was prevalent on the site. There was not always suitable clothing available for young children and one small child was seen to fall over due to wearing oversized clothing. Even the security guards did not always have suitable clothing and when the weather was cold and wet they had to wrap themselves in bin bags to protect themselves from the elements.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are grateful for the important work of the Independent Monitoring Board. Since the inspection period covered in this report, there have been significant improvements made to the Kent coast short-term holding facilities, including transformation of medical services and facilities and the move to new more suitable accommodation at the Kent Intake Unit. The health and welfare of people in our care, and individuals working in these facilities, is of the utmost importance.”
