Asylum speakers say they have been spat at after arriving in the UK. Two weeks ago, Mohamed, from Kurdistan, was transferred to a new accommodation centre between Long Eaton and Sandiacre. Mohamed and almost 400 asylum seekers have been housed at the Novotel and Best Western hotels, in Bostocks Lane.
During a Sandiacre Parish Council meeting, on Tuesday, November 1, residents spoke about their "fear" over gangs of "single men" being housed at the hotels reports Derbyshire Live. However, Mohamed explained that he and other asylum seekers have faced difficulties from residents and that they do not want to cause any problems.
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He said: "People look at me funny when they see the colour of my skin. Sometimes they spit. We walk past with our hoods up and faces down and don’t look back. We know it’s not our country so sometimes they have a right. But we respect everyone - every time."
Mohamed continued: “We are refugees. We need help. We have problems in our country so we can’t go back.
"We don’t want or need problems here. We helped English people when they came over to our country, with Daesh (ISIS) when it was happening.
"So many people were coming to Kurdistan. They stayed in our house. I remember my mother, father and two brothers sleeping in one room, and the English people sleeping in the other room.”
Around 80 people attended the council meeting, and amongst the points spoken about there was an alleged disturbance at a dentist, that refugees had been using the local parks and woodland in the area as "toilets" and there were concerns about crime levels.
Mohamed said: “Maybe there are criminals here amongst the hundreds of people. I don’t know. But I haven’t seen anything.
"If I say there aren’t, I’d be lying because I can’t know and it’s not possible for me to know. Some crazy people might do things."
He added: "But that doesn’t mean it’s everyone doing them. It happens everywhere. Even in England.
"Not everyone is the same. But from what I’ve seen, people have respected every rule in this hotel.”
When asked about the claims of young girls and women being approached in ways that made them feel uncomfortable, Mohamed said: "In my country, we have a rule.
"We grow up with rules. We see underage girls like sisters. My people, Kurdish people, we don’t do that."
Whilst the hotels in Erewash are hosting males, there are hotels used to house women and children elsewhere in England. Some of the men in the hotels do have families, and others do not.
Mohamed explained the hostility he's experienced since he arrived in the country. He said: "Our days involve leaving the hotel, coming back and sleeping.
"We don’t have friends here. There’s nothing to do. It’s like jail.
"Yesterday the police came and patrolled every room. They came into our rooms, with their access cards, looked around everywhere, didn’t say hello and left everything messed up.”
Another refugee, Aqil, left his job as a policeman in Iraq and has been at the hotel for almost a week. Aqil said: "Some of the people saying these things are racist.
"Not all of them, but some of them. The UK wouldn’t work if it wasn’t for refugees.
"There were people working at the Home Office from India. If all the refugees left, the country wouldn’t work very well."
He continued: "We’re not criminals. We’re refugees. We want asylum. There are wars in our countries and other problems.
"If I didn’t have a problem in my country, I wouldn’t be here. In Iraq I have money. Here, I have no money, no clothes and no work. I don’t have anything. But here I am safe.”
The issue was raised in parliament on Thursday, November 3, by Erewash MP Maggie Throup. She explained that she had been left out of the decision-making process regarding the accommodation centres.
She said: "Had I been asked, I would have opposed the accommodation centres due to the unacceptable pressure on the local services in my constituency." Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt has said she would write to the Home Office and ask that the issue be addressed swiftly.
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