InfoMigrants

Asylum seekers living at a hotel in southeast London for the past 18 months were given just a few hours' notice before being moved to a location in Bedfordshire — more than 40 miles away. Many have expressed anger, disappointment and disbelief at the way they're being treated in the UK.

Asylum seekers on Tuesday (February 7) staged a protest after being told that they would be moved to the other of the metropolitan area of London within a matter of hours. They were told on Monday evening that they needed to be moved to a different hotel the following morning — several counties away from their original location.

Police and an ambulance arrived at the hotel in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, where the asylum seekers had been housed since the summer of 2021, to try to remove them in an orderly manner.

A number of officers had to enter the hotel, as one asylum seeker was arrested and taken away in a police van.

Lives interrupted

There were more than 130 asylum seekers who had been living at the hotel for months on end.

Many of them had established local ties and community links in the area. According to the daily newspaper The Guardian, some were even studying in the area.

One Eritrean asylum seeker who reluctantly agreed to move from the Greenwich hotel, told The Guardian how he felt upset about the move:

"I was part way through a maths GCSE at the local college," he said, referring to the standardized school leaving examination in the UK. "I won't be able to continue with that now. I feel like time is slipping away from me.

"We came to the UK looking for freedom but the reality is not like that. I've lost my friends, my community, my college with this move. I've lost everything. The system is broken."

Another asylum seeker, who in the end did manage to remain at the Greenwich hotel, told The Guardian that he was receiving constant medical treatment at a nearby hospital, and was therefore unable to move elsewhere:

"They came to us without prior notice. I have a medical condition. I cannot leave this place. I fled war in my country. I have just started to rebuild my life here and now I have to be uprooted again," he said.

Thousands of asylum seekers are being accommodated in hotels by the Home Office, according to The Guardian newspaper | Source: Screenshot ITV News

Local politicians outraged

Greenwich Council Anthony Okereke spoke out against the removal of the asylum seekers, saying that the Home Office had not told the council in time that it was planning to move them.

"By the time we were notified, the removal of people was already under way. This raises significant concerns over the way the Home Office works with local authorities to ensure the safety and wellbeing of refugees and asylum seekers in our borough and beyond," he said in a statement published on the council's homepage.

Denise Scott-McDonald, the council's cabinet member for health and social care, added that it was "disgraceful" that people who had made their lives in the borough, "after already spending 18 months in wholly unsuitable and unacceptable accommodation, are now being forcibly removed to places where they have no connection."

Financial considerations

A Home Office spokesperson said that the government had to balance a delicate line between housing refugees and taking fiscal issues into consideration:

"We continue to provide safe accommodation for destitute asylum seekers who need it as we work to end the use of hotels, which are costing UK taxpayers almost £6 million (6.8 million euros) a day."

"Individuals housed in our accommodation may be moved to other locations in line with the allocation of accommodation guidance," the statement further said.

Hotels in the British capital are expensive year-round, even when local councils purchase bulk bookings with them to provide temporary housing solutions.

Removal trend across the region

This is not the only instance of seemingly arbitrary removals of people with pending asylum applications living in and around London.

A court case is currently examining whether the enforced move of 40 Afghan refugee families from a London hotel can be halted. The families would be taken hundreds of miles away to the north of England — only to be housed at a hotel there.

Last October, there was another protest about an enforced move of asylum seekers from a west London hotel to a hotel outside London. In this instance, children were already settled in the local school district.

Ultimately, however, the asylum seekers all were moved.

with The Guardian, Royal Borough of Greenwich