Friends support Bibby Stockholm evacuees
'When the news broke about the legionella, the asylum seekers were already on the barge seeing it on social media, and not knowing what was going on.'
Quakers have been supporting asylum seekers affected by the Bibby Stockholm barge controversy.
Members of the Portland Global Friendship Group, which includes several Quakers, have been helping asylum seekers evacuated to a hotel after the Portland barge failed a test for legionella.
Giovanni Lewis, from the group, who is not a Quaker, told the Friend that, when the news was announced, there were people already on the barge. ‘A lot of them were quite nervous when they got to the hotel, because of the safety of the water on the barge. We took bottles of water to help them. It was a very anxious time, because they’d been drinking the water and showering. When the news broke about the legionella, the asylum seekers were already on the barge seeing it on social media, and not knowing what was going on. We’re told there were a number of staff living there too [in the same position].Some asylum seekers arrived on the Monday that the test results were known, but they continued to put people on, until 39 were evacuated on the Friday evening.’
Dorset councillor and Quaker Paul Kimber has said that the Home Office has ‘serious questions to answer’. A former chair of Weymouth Port Health Authority for ten years until 2019, he said: ‘It is not unusual to have a water fail on a vessel but it is unusual to ignore the test. The people on board – both the refugees and the workers onboard – should have been alerted straight away.’
Thirty-nine people briefly housed on the barge wrote to Suella Braverman last week describing its ‘unsafe, frightening’ environment, which drove one to attempt suicide.
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