Trauma of Manston Centre

‘You must help them’: Lone asylum-seeking children reveal trauma of Manston centre

One 16-year-old said he was forced to sleep on leftover food boxes, while another says he was shouted at for asking for food.

Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have told how they were held at the government’s Manston processing centre for 19 days, forced to sleep sitting up due to lack of space, and developed scabies at the overrun site.

Asylum seekers should only be held at the site for 24 hours but the short-term facility has turned into a “humanitarian crisis on British soil” because the Home Office has failed to book appropriate hotel accommodation.

One 16-year-old from Sudan told how he would use leftover food boxes as a sleeping mat and said that he wasn’t given a change of clothes for the first 18 days he was there, despite his clothes being damp from the Channel crossing.