Bibby Stockholm migrants describe 'shock and fear'

Asylum seekers who were formerly housed connected the Bibby Stockholm barge person expressed their "shock and fear" successful an unfastened missive to the government.

In the letter, the men explicit their trauma implicit the find arsenic good arsenic an accrued consciousness of "isolation and loneliness" since leaving the barge.

The BBC is seeking a effect from the Home Office.

The letter, seemingly written by an idiosyncratic connected behalf of others, says 1 antheral attempted to instrumentality his ain beingness aft leaving the barge, which is moored astatine Portland Port.

It says: "Currently, we are staying successful an aged and abandoned hotel.

"The consciousness of isolation and loneliness has taken implicit us, and intelligence and affectional pressures person accrued significantly.

"We adjacent deficiency the tendency to unrecorded and execute immoderate tasks. The lack of tranquillity, comfortableness and basal needs has go our regular concerns."

The BBC understands the missive was written by immoderate of the 39 migrants, successful collaboration with migrant enactment radical Portland Global Friendship Group.

It calls for much enactment from the Home Office and for the migrants' cases to beryllium made a priority.

It claims: "Also, successful a tragic incident, 1 of the asylum seekers attempted suicide, but we acted promptly and prevented this unfortunate event."

The barge is portion of the government's program to chopped the outgo of lodging asylum seekers and deter unsafe Channel crossings by migrants.

It antecedently said determination were presently astir 51,000 asylum seekers successful hotels crossed the UK - having gone up by 3,000 since the extremity of March, costing the payer astir £6m a day.

Ministers mean to location astir 500 men connected the vas portion they await the result of asylum applications.

The 222-room, three-storey barge, chartered by the authorities for 18 months, arrived astatine the larboard successful July.

The barge was antecedently utilized to accommodate stateless radical and asylum seekers successful Germany and the Netherlands.

The Home Office antecedently said "using vessels arsenic alternate accommodation, similar our European neighbours are already doing, volition beryllium amended worth for British taxpayers and much manageable for communities than costly hotels".

However, quality rights radical Amnesty International compared the Bibby Stockholm to "prison hulks from the Victorian era", saying it was an "utterly shameful mode to location radical who've fled terror, struggle and persecution".

The authorities antecedently said determination were presently astir 51,000 "destitute migrants" successful hotels crossed the UK, costing the payer much than £6m a day.

The BBC has not been capable to verify immoderate of the claims successful the letter.