Irregular immigrants, who were placed on the Bibby Stockholm ship in England in August, started to be resettled to the ship they left after staying for 4 days due to bacteria in the water.
In the statement made by the British Ministry of Internal Affairs, it was stated that the immigrants started to be brought back to the ship in Portland Port as of today, and that all checks on the ship were completed and all were satisfactory.
The statement stated that more immigrants will be gradually placed on the ship in the coming days, and that this is part of the government’s commitment to reduce the use of expensive hotels and provide taxpayers with more affordable and sustainable alternative accommodation options.
According to the news in the country’s press, 21 irregular immigrants were initially resettled on the ship.
Migrants’ arrival on the ship was postponed twice
England had decided to host immigrants in floating structures built on unused buildings in military facilities and barges to accommodate approximately 50 thousand irregular immigrants in the country.
While it was announced that the decision was made to move the immigrants who were hosted in hotels in the country due to the high cost, the Bibby Stockholm ship was on the agenda as the first ship where the immigrants would be placed for this purpose.
The first group of immigrants, consisting of 39 people, started arriving on the ship anchored in Portland Harbor in the south of the country on August 7.
The ship, which was initially planned to accommodate 50 refugees, was evacuated on August 11 due to legionella bacteria found in the drinking water system.
The Bibby Stockholm ship, which had previously postponed the arrival of immigrants twice due to fire safety problems and remained empty for two months due to legionella, will host male refugees between the ages of 18-65.
NGOs called Bibby Stockholm “prison ship”
While nearly 500 immigrants planned to stay on the ship are planned to be brought to Bibby Stockholm within 18 months, more than 2 thousand irregular immigrants are planned to be moved to unused buildings at two air bases in the Lincolnshire and Essex regions.
Pro-immigrant non-governmental organizations and human rights organizations in the country argued that hosting asylum seekers on ships was “inhumane” and called Bibby Stockholm a “prison ship”.
The opinions expressed herein are the author’s and not necessarily those of News2Sea.
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