Asylum seekers in Hull still wary of going out two months after hotel targeted during UK riots
In a church hall in Hull, groups of asylum seekers queue for tea and toast and advice from immigration experts.
The room is busy, the busiest it’s been since the riots.
The volunteers who run the weekly event say many people were initially too scared to come out following the violence.
As in other towns and cities, a hotel housing migrants became a target for the rioters.
Wahag, 24, describes watching the attack from a window on the third floor of the hotel.
Speaking in Arabic via a translator, he recalls: “I felt scared. I saw the people throwing stones and rocks at the hotel.”
He says he and the other migrants were advised not to go out.
Concerned there could be further riots, he says: “I’m worried that if it does happen again, it would be very bad.”
Wahag says he arrived in the UK by small boat just a few months ago after making the journey across Europe from Yemen.
The riots have left him with mixed views on Britain, where he thought he would be safe.
“There are some bad people and some good people,” he reflects, but he says the UK has a “good government”.
Wahag reveals that the Home Office has now granted him leave to remain in Britain.
The decision came much more quickly than he expected. His is one of many asylum claims processed since Labour won the election, as it begins to tackle a backlog of applications.
He says he is “happy” Labour is now in power.
“The previous government, they wanted to deport us but now they are making the procedure easier for us,” he says.
It means he will have to move out of the hotel, but is now free to make a life in Britain.
Many of the migrants we spoke to remain more wary about going out.
William, from Kenya, believes asylum seekers were targeted because people think “we came here to seek money or their jobs”.
But he says it’s unfair migrants are blamed for the accommodation and support they are given.
“It’s the Home Office and the government,” says William.
“If we were given the right to work we cannot be living in hotels, living for free.”
‘It’s not our fault they put me in that hotel’
Mustafa, who came to the UK on the back of a lorry nine years ago, was also in the hotel as rioters attacked it.
“We hear they are shouting ‘we need to burn the hotel, we need to burn the people in the hotel’,” he recalls, praising the police for keeping him and others safe.
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Earlier this year Mustafa, from Iraq, was destitute.
His asylum claim had been rejected and he was sleeping on a park bench.
But he has since put in a fresh claim, which meant the Home Office gave him a room in the hotel while he awaits a decision.
Asked if he understands why some people find it frustrating he gets a hotel room, an option not available to people born in Britain who find themselves destitute, he says “of course, of course”.
But he says: “You know the procedure of the Home Office. It’s not our fault they put me in that hotel.”
A Home Office spokesperson said it is “determined to restore order to the asylum system after it has been put under unprecedented pressure, so that it operates swiftly, firmly and fairly”.
They added: “We have taken necessary action to restart asylum processing and clear the backlog of cases which will save an estimated £7bn for the taxpayer over the next 10 years.”