Channel migrants: Charity voices concern at Kent facilities report

Migrants were observed sleeping on buses at a Kent processing centre

A migrant support charity has spoken of its concern after a report into the conditions men, women and children faced at processing centres in Kent.

The Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) found migrants had been sleeping on buses, while others had undetected chemical burns.

Migrant Help said: "Everybody deserves to feel safe and have their human rights protected."

The Home Office said short-term holding facilities had since been improved.

Inspectors from the IMB visited the now-closed Tug Haven facility and Kent Intake Unit in Dover, plus Frontier House in Folkestone in 2021, although the report was only published this week.

The small facility at Tug Haven occupied a car park next to a jetty area where people arrived from small boats having completed journeys across the Channel.

Diesel burns

Children as young as two weeks old were seen during the board's visits to the site, with some found to be sharing tents with adults they did not know.

The report said the facility was "clearly overstretched, manifestly unsuitable for holding detained people overnight".

Inspectors found people sleeping on thin mats on the floor of the main tent, packed so closely together they were "practically touching".

Others, it said, slept on cold double-decker buses.

Inspectors also found people had been arriving with diesel on their clothes, which in some cases resulted in chemical burns.

One of those was a 16-year-old girl who had been admitted to the Kent Intake Unit with burns on her legs.

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The report said: "She had been at the Tug Haven for two days wearing wet clothes [which] had become embedded into the burns."

The injuries, the report said, were only detected when she moved on to the intake unit.

However, inspectors praised staff at the facilities, saying they were "respectful, professional and empathetic".

A spokesman for Migrant Help said: "Migrant Help strongly believes everybody deserves to feel safe and have their human rights protected, so we are concerned to hear these reports about these conditions."

A Home Office spokesman said: "Since the inspection took place in 2021, improvements have been made to the short-term holding facilities.

"The Tug Haven site is no longer operational. Illegal arrivals are now processed at Western Jet Foil and Manston, where we offer suitable welfare provisions, while specialist facilities for young people are available at the Kent Intake Unit for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children."