Thread by @MSF_uk

Hi @HomeOffice, as you’re well aware, last Friday a fire broke out at #NapierBarracks in Kent, a former military site your department repurposed as emergency accommodation for people seeking asylum.

THREAD 👇 1/11

For many years we’ve witnessed the horrendous conditions that refugees and migrants in Europe have been subjected to, whether in northern France, at sea in the Mediterranean, stranded on the Greek islands and across the Balkans.
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Throughout, we have called on the UK Government to ensure the most vulnerable among them, including unaccompanied children, are offered sanctuary in the UK.
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Instead we've watched the UK shirk its moral and legal responsibilities by supporting increasingly hostile initiatives aimed solely at preventing people seeking safety here...
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thesun.co.uk/news/12816615/…

... while cutting off existing safe routes, as we saw recently for unaccompanied children without relatives in the UK.
5/11
independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

Such policies have included previously funding detention centres in Libya where there were very serious human rights concerns…
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msf.exposure.co/human-suffering

... and funding and training the Libyan coastguard to intercept people tyring to flee Libya and returning them there, a country that we know is extremely unsafe, especially for migrants.
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gov.uk/government/new…

What we're currently witnessing is nothing more than an extension of this policy of deterrence on UK soil & we know from experience across Europe, particularly Moria camp in Greece, forcing people to live in such awful conditions can end in disaster.
8/11
msf.org.uk/article/moria-…

And that’s before considering that we're currently battling a global pandemic! We've responded to outbreaks all over the world & know that forcing people to live in cramped, unsanitary & “prison like” conditions (according to dep High Court judge @CliveLawyer) is dangerous.
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"The court heard evidence about the unsafe and unsanitary conditions at the barracks, with 14 men sharing a room, lack of heating, poor sanitary conditions and the impact of a recent serious fire" 👇
10/11
theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/f…

Everyone should be treated with dignity, provided access to medical care and able to live in conditions that are safe! #NapierBarracks
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