British plan to house refugees in a naval barge

Highlights: Britain recently adopted a new plan to house refugees in a barge in the middle of the sea. The plan was fiercely opposed, not only by civil rights groups advocating for refugee rights, but also by the heart of the Conservative Party. The government has proposed using the RAF military base in Lincolnshire to house thousands of refugees as a less expensive alternative to hotels costing the government around £6 million a day to house the 51,<> refugees now pending. Al Jazeera Net searched for experiences of detaining refugees in battleships, including what happened on board the "Bebe Stockholm" previously.

Britain recently adopted a new plan to house refugees in a barge in the middle of the sea, which has provoked opposition among many quarters, especially human rights organizations, because of its negative effects.

LONDON – The British government has enacted laws against refugees in a successive and unprecedented manner, which sparked wide controversy, and the laws came from the boat law, which seeks to reduce migration by sea, through deportation to Rwanda, until it arrived on the fifth of April / April to announce the government's intention to house 500 refugees on board a 93-meter floating barge in the sea.

Against barge accommodation

The plan was fiercely opposed, not only by civil rights groups advocating for refugee rights, but also by the heart of the Conservative Party themselves, including local councils in Dorset (the expected port of the barge) and Conservative MP Richard Drax, a proponent of restricting the number of migrants to Britain, but opposed the accommodation of refugees at the barge as ill-conceived.

For his part, Representative Richard Drax threatened Interior Secretary Suila Braverman to enter into a legal debate over her plan to house migrants on board the barge, citing the pressure this would cause on local facilities in Portland Dorset, especially the police and the health sector, as Drax explained that the barge docked in port without checking with local authorities, while Immigration Secretary Robert Jenrick indicated earlier that refugees would be accommodated in primitive accommodation to meet their basic needs and nothing more.

Migrants in Britain face risks under new government policy (Getty Images)

Forced accommodation in difficult conditions

The floating barge consists of 3 floors, and has 222 single bedrooms with en-suite bathroom and kitchen, and contains some entertainment rooms such as television, gym and gym, the British government intends to put double beds in those narrow rooms to double the number of refugees residing in them, according to the announcement of the Home Office, the barge is intended to house adult males only. According to local newspaper calculations, the ratio of people's area to barge area suggests that the estimated area in which an individual can live will be less than the area used to park a car.

The Times reported that the cost of renting the barge is £15,19 ($4500,39) per day, plus the cost of berthing fees at the Port of Portland Dorset is £<>,<> per day, meaning that the cost of a refugee as a daily accommodation is on average £<>, plus some additional daily expenses of security and restaurant services.

Military bases to house refugees

The government has proposed using the RAF military base in Lincolnshire to house thousands of refugees as a less expensive alternative to hotels costing the government around £6 million a day to house the 51,<> refugees now pending.

According to research by the Independent Aid Commission (ICAI), the average cost per night per person in a hotel is £120 versus £18 for long-term homes and apartments that have a more stable character for refugee families.

A tragic history of similar experiences

Liverpool-based operator Bibby Marine Limited has announced that the refurbished barge is returning to service, describing it as being used to create a "repressive environment" for asylum seekers in the Netherlands.

Al Jazeera Net searched for experiences of detaining refugees in battleships, including what happened on board the "Bebe Stockholm" previously, as it monitored repeated incidents in 2012 of migrants on board the barge, which was then densely 222 refugees detained only.

Several fights and rapes were recorded, and Rachid Abdeslam (Algerian) and Ahmed Mahmoud Al-Sabah (Egyptian) died due to poor healthcare, according to human rights group State Watch.

While a barge used for the same purpose witnessed a fire incident that resulted in the death of 11 detained refugees affected by the fire incident in which the Libyan Ahmed Issa Al-Jibali (24 years old) was accused and sentenced to 3 years in prison, as Danish investigations claimed that his smoking caused the fire and held him responsible for the accident in complete disregard of neglect of safety and security standards on the barge.

Warning of the effects of forced shelter

Sophie McCann, MSF's immigration officer, wrote to Al Jazeera Net, who said: "We are concerned about further inhumane and harmful government plans to house refugees seeking safety in the UK, even piling them up on giant boats, ferries and former military bases."

She added that they are very concerned, as detaining people in prison-like conditions and isolating them from society will have serious consequences for their physical and mental health, in addition to threatening their access to quality health care as has happened in the past.

Refugees seek safety, have been subjected to torture, violence, imprisonment in their countries of origin and danger during migration journeys, and detention in prison-like conditions can cause people to develop complex post-traumatic stress stress and may cause mental illness or exacerbate existing psychological crises.

MSF teams in Greece have witnessed the horrific health effects of containing people seeking refuge in high-security shelters, with MSF monitoring high levels of psychological suffering, exacerbated by appalling conditions, lack of information on their legal status and prolonged accommodation in a harsh environment.

McCann stressed that the government must recognise that punitive deterrence measures, including the Boat Act, will not prevent refugees from trying to reach the UK, and draconian plans must be abandoned immediately and placed in safe and dignified accommodation.

The United Kingdom is witnessing a high wave of attacks on refugees at all levels, and despite the dispersion and incoherence of incidents, they are all in a direction that harms the interest of refugees, as London last month witnessed an incident that prevented Afghan refugees from entering high school exams, while on Saturday the city of Nottingham witnessed an emergency evacuation of a refugee hotel due to news received by police about the possibility of an explosive device inside a suspicious parcel in the hotel.

Many government institutions plan to take drastic measures not only to reduce the influx of refugees into the Kingdom, but also to reduce the basic subsistence expenses that refugees need, knowing that the UK does not authorize refugees to work for a full year before their case has been scrutinized, leaving refugees with no option for a better life before a work permit is available.