7 April 2025: Guardian: People held at UK asylum centre sue government for human rights breach
Asylum seekers detained at Manston in Kent say they were kept in unsanitary tents during infectious disease outbreak
At least 250 people who were detained at Manston asylum centre during a period when it was dangerously overcrowded and grappling with outbreaks of infectious diseases are suing the government for unlawful detention and other breaches of their rights.
They include a woman who had a miscarriage, a child whose age was recorded as five years older than he was, classifying him as an adult, and a teenager who was a victim of torture and trafficking.
The claims arise from a time when the Home Office’s site in Kent for processing people who had crossed the Channel on small boats was described by a senior union official as “a humanitarian crisis on British soil”.
The former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Neal, said the poorly managed and insanitary conditions there were so bad he was rendered speechless.
Andy Baxter, the assistant general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association, raised the alarm about conditions on the site in response to concerns from members of his union who worked there. After visiting, he described an unprecedented situation which more closely resembled a refugee camp in an unstable country than a Home Office temporary staging post for new arrivals to the UK in a tranquil corner of Kent.