This week it was supposed to house fifty asylum seekers out of an expected total of more than five thousand. But the Bibby Stockholm is empty at its berth in Dorset, a county in the south of England. And it is that the first to embark on the floating residence since Monday 7, a total of 39 refugees, were unexpectedly evacuated this Friday due to the risk of contamination of the water system. The Ministry of the Interior confirmed in a press release that “environmental tests” of the pipes of the boat have given a positive result of the bacteriological presence of legionella.
The dangerous bacterium has, at least temporarily, scuttled Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s strategy to reduce the economic and political cost of irregular immigration. No refugee will board the floating prison until new analyzes confirm the purification of the internal water system. “The health and well-being of the individuals on the ship is our top priority,” a ministry spokesman said on Friday.
Meanwhile, the 39 evicted will once again occupy the hotel rooms that the head of the Conservative Government and his Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman, want to eliminate and replace with cabins on port waters, bedrooms in old military barracks and tents near the centers of refugee reception. Sunak is confident that the hardening of living conditions on British soil will deter foreigners from crossing the English Channel by boat from France and will allow the estimated seven million euros a day that the Administration spends on hotel rooms to be cut.
But the forecasts do not add up yet. On Thursday the 10th, the 2023 record for the number of migrants who have arrived in England via the dangerous Channel route was recorded. Up to 755 adults and children arrived in 14 boats, including a group of 17 that nearly capsized at sea. They were rescued by operatives from the National Lifeboat Organization (RNLI) after the British Border Force lost one of its rescue boats to breakdown. A maritime surveillance drone crashed that same morning, further complicating the situation.
The British press warns that the mark of 100,000 irregular immigrants on journeys from coastal enclaves of the European Union has been exceeded since the Government began recording the data, in 2018. The statistics for the first six months of the year indicate a reduction of 14 % compared to the previous period, but the improvement seems more related to adverse maritime and weather conditions along the route than to government measures and Sunak’s promise to “stop the boats”. In fact, a new peak of arrivals in small boats is anticipated this weekend, as the weather forecasts announce good temperatures and moderate wind.
Human rights organizations and anti-racism collectives yesterday called for a reversal of the policy of confining migrants on boats. “The Bibby Stockholm is a visual illustration of the hostile environment this government deploys against refugees and has quickly become a symbol of the chaotic incompetence that has destroyed the UK asylum system,” said Steve Smith, director of Care4Calais.
This NGO defends a group of refugees who refused to board the sleeping boat, alleging mental and physical health issues, and the bacteriological detection in the water system adds weight to their suspicions. “We have always known that our concerns regarding the health and safety of the ship are justified and this new demonstration of mismanagement confirms our position,” the coordinator concluded.
The Bibby Stockholm is moored at the privately owned Portland pier, and local authorities were barely consulted about the controversial deal with the central government. For the mayor of the town, Carralyn Parkes, the health incident “is part of a long litany of disasters around the barge.” In turn, the Dorset regional council, which covers this remote enclave of the English ‘Jurassic coast’, was quick to issue a message of confidence. “No individual has symptoms of Legionella disease and the broader Portland community is not at any health risk,” he said Friday.
The bacterium was detected in tests of water intakes collected from the pipes of the ship, which was moored at the dock on the Isle of Portland in mid-July. The tests had been carried out days ago, but the operation to transfer the asylum seekers was launched without waiting for the results. Interior assured that none of the evacuees showed signs of discomfort and described the eviction as a “precautionary measure.”
