IRR has, since 1989, been recording the deaths of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants – two of the most vulnerable sections of our society – as a result of attempting to enter the UK, self-harm, denial of medical treatment, destitution, hazardous working conditions or racist attacks. Forced by circumstances beyond their control to seek a
Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, has published a report criticising the continued detention of children at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre. The report was based on an announced inspection from 13-16 February 2006 designed to ascertain whether recommendations made following the full inspection in the previous year had been adhered to. Yet despite identifying
Parents currently being detained in Yarl’s Wood removal centre have begun a hunger strike in a desperate bid to draw attention to the sufferings of their children. The alarming action, which started at breakfast time this morning, is regarded by the parents as being a drastic, but necessary stage in their campaign to give their
On a bitterly cold Sunday morning last week, over eighty people gathered outside Harmondsworth removal centre for a vigil in memory of 26-year-old Eritrean asylum seeker, Bereket Yohannes, who was found hanged in a shower block at Harmondsworth on 19 January. Bereket’s is the eighth asylum seeker to take his own life in an immigration
In true Dickensian fashion, a new report reveals the appalling treatment of society’s forgotten victims, namely female rape survivors and torture victims held at Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre. 15 December saw the launch of the findings of an investigation into the conditions provided for women detained at Bedfordshire’s Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre and the neglect
A campaign launched to prevent an Afghan youth from being deported is the latest in a series of vociferous crusades championed by the Kent Campaign to Defend Asylum Seekers. According to the group, many young Afghans, who arrive in the UK as ‘unaccompanied minors’, are being forced to return to their country of origin because
A report on the inspection of Haslar Immigration Removal Centre, conducted in May by Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers, has elucidated a number of serious concerns regarding the safety, accommodation and legal representation of detainees. Some custody staff at Haslar, which is run by the Prison Service on behalf of the Immigration and Nationality
A coalition of students and anti-deportation campaigners have rallied together and helped Abrahim Rahimi win the right to a judicial review of his asylum claim. A young Afghan man, Abrahim Rahimi, has just won the right to a judicial review of the Home Office decision to refuse to accept new evidence in his new asylum
On 29 June, at a second disciplinary tribunal of police officers involved in the failed police investigations into the murder of Jay Abatan in January 1999 in Brighton, two police officers were found guilty of various misconduct charges – for which they were reprimanded or cautioned. The tribunal revealed many troubling details about the police
In November last year, the family of a Kurdish migrant, who died trying to enter Britain in 2001, were finally able to bury their son in northern Iraq, after his body was released from a Kent mortuary. IRR News has now received pictures of the funeral. In May 2004, IRR News reported on the plight
