‘We are dying little by little here’: asylum seekers at mercy of Home Office hotel closures

Huda’s 12-year-old daughter, who uses a wheelchair and has epilepsy and a heart condition, is sleeping on the floor. Photograph: supplied

Huda and her two children aged 10 and 12 had been living in two rooms in a London hotel for six months when they were told with just a few days’ notice they would be moved. The 41-year-old engineering graduate from Tunisia fled death threats from extended family and is waiting for an asylum application to be processed.

The Home Office had decided that Staycity, the hotel the family was staying in, would be closed as part of a government pledge that asylum seekers would be moved out of hotels and into military barracks or other forms of shared housing. The move followed protests by anti-migrant activists, with many arguing hotels were too luxurious to accommodate asylum seekers.