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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Lizzie Dearden

Hunger strikes and suicide attempts as asylum seekers claim Essex site is ‘like prison’

The Wethersfield site is a former RAF base.
The Wethersfield site is a former RAF base. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Increasing numbers of asylum seekers housed in a former military base are attempting suicide, self-harming and refusing to eat as conditions worsen, a new report has warned.

Tensions have been rising at Wethersfield in Essex, where about 600 men have been left “with little to do and growing feelings of desperation”, claims the Helen Bamber Foundation, a human rights charity.

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