Number of UK asylum seekers who died in Home Office care doubles in a year

The Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, where some asylum seekers were held. Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images

The number of asylum seekers who have died in the care of the Home Office has more than doubled in the last year, according to data shared with the Guardian, a development that has been described as “deeply troubling”.

While some deaths were a result of illness or old age, others are thought to have happened as a result of suicide. Charities fear that the treatment of asylum seekers in the UK has adversely affected the health of an already vulnerable group of people.