Driven to Desperate Measures
17 October 2010, 11:00pm
The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) publishes today a report on deaths of asylum seekers and migrants which damns government policies for putting vulnerable people at risk.
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On Tuesday, an Angolan asylum seeker died during his deportation. But this is not an isolated case. According to IRR's report, Driven to Desperate Measures: 2006-2010, forty-four people have died since 2006 as a consequence of the iniquities of the immigration/asylum system. Another seven died at the hand of racists on our streets.
Harmit Athwal, the author of the report, said, 'Racism percolates right through the immigration/asylum system - from forcing people to risk life and limb to enter, forcing them to live destitute on the street, prey to violent racist attack. That twenty-eight people died at their own hand, preferring this to being returned, when their asylum application failed, to the country they fled, is a terrible indictment of British justice.'
Download a copy of Driven to Desperate Measures: 2006-2010 (pdf file, 432kb).
Related links
Download ERA Briefing Paper no.4: 'Accelerated removals: a study of the human cost of EU deportation policies, 2009-2010' (pdf file, 1.3mb)
