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Refugees can't stay - and can't go home
Tired and hungry, Ibrahim lay shivering on a beach. Although he's a failed asylum seeker, the 23-year-old is one of dozens living rough on our streets.
He has been refused asylum in the UK but the Home Office won't deport him because his home in war-torn Darfur is too dangerous.
However, Ibrahim and others like him aren't entitled to any benefits, a home or allowed to work in this country.
Amnesty International – which has investigated some of the worst humanitarian scandals in the world – said this has led to failed asylum seekers in Portsmouth being left in extreme poverty.
Most are destitute, often having to sleep in public toilets and parks, and rummage through bins for food, the organisation said.
Ibrahim, also pictured on the front page, fled his country after his village was ransacked by Arab militias in 2004.
The 23-year-old, who is too scared to be fully identified, arrived in Dover and was sent to Portsmouth after declaring himself an asylum seeker.
While his claim was processed he was put up in a shared house with other refugees, but at the beginning of this year was thrown out after his application was rejected. Ever since he has been sleeping rough.
He said: 'I had to sleep on Southsea beach for five months because I had nowhere to go. Sometimes I can stay in Fratton or North End but often I don't know where I will be sleeping.
'I had no money for food – I had to ask my friends for food and borrow clothes.But if I go back to Darfur I will be killed – nobody can live there. There is murder all the time. I cannot go back.'
Ibrahim can claim special food vouchers from the Home Office but they are worth just 25 a week.
He is not alone – there are 65 other people in the Portsmouth area also claiming the vouchers. And the only reason Ibrahim has a roof over his head is thanks to Portsmouth's Refugee Action.
The organisation and Amnesty International has now called on the government to give benefits to failed asylum seekers until their countries are safe to go back to.
Jasmine O'Connor, manager of the local Refugee Action, said: 'In Portsmouth there is a growing class of people who have no access to work or support and little prospect of their situation being resolved. It causes enormous suffering to vulnerable people.
'If a person cannot be removed, a humane solution must be found so they can live with dignity and purpose.'
The Home Office has to provide food vouchers. But it said it wouldn't do anything more.
'The Home Office would not remove an individual to Sudan if we considered that they were likely to suffer persecution on their return,' a spokesman said.
alex.forsyth@thenews.co.uk
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Weather for Portsmouth
Wednesday 08 February 2012
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