How the Red Cross blew the whistle on overcrowded migrant detention centres

Papers sent to Holly Bancroft under freedom of information laws reveal how the charity was battling to get officials to act

- Holly Bancroft

The Home Office failed to act on grave warnings from the British Red Cross about an unfolding crisis at two immigration centres, despite employing them to support migrants at the sites and report back, newly released documents reveal.

The documents – that the Home Office took more than two years to release – raise questions about officials’ handling of Western Jet Foil migrant processing centre in Dover and Manston centre in Kent in the autumn of 2022.

Emails, performance reports and letters sent by the Red Cross to senior Home Office officials between September and November 2022 – disclosed to The Independent under freedom of information laws – show how the charity raised “deeply troubling observations” at the two sites and tried to get the Home Office to act.

Among the issues raised were the confiscation of crucial medication, concerns about migrants’ access to urgent medical care, and people being housed in leaking tents without adequate sleeping provisions.

Red Cross staff were on site at both centres in the autumn of 2022, when a humanitarian crisis began. Manston became severely overcrowded, with migrants unable to access healthcare and forced to sleep on damp and mouldy wooden flooring.

As conditions spiralled out of control, the Home Office came under increasing pressure from MPs, unions and the media to act. The Kent site, which was designed to hold up to 1,600 people, was housing 4,000 at the end of October 2022. On 19 November, a detainee died. After weeks of delay, on 22 November, the government announced that Manston had been emptied.