Skip to main content
Advertise with the Morning Star
Housing refugees on ‘floating prison’ risks retraumatising them, charity warns
A view of the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge at Portland Port in Dorset

HOUSING asylum-seekers on the Bibby Stockholm “floating prison” would be inhumane and risks retraumatising people who have escaped war zones and other horrors, a refugee charity warned today.

Care4Calais chief executive Steve Smith raised fears that the barge being prepared to accommodate more than 500 refugees at Portland, Dorset, is an “accident waiting to happen” because of insufficient fire safety on board with the government putting money as a “higher priority than people’s lives.”

It follows a warning by the Fire Brigades Union that the site is a “potential deathtrap.”

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
New houses being constructed
Housing / 25 August 2025
25 August 2025
A man looks through an estate agent's window in Glasgow, Scotland
Scotland / 25 August 2025
25 August 2025
Noel Clarke arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice in London where his libel claim against Guardian News and Media (GNM) is taking place, April 11, 2025
Britain / 22 August 2025
22 August 2025
Similar stories
A view of HMP Northeye in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, March
Britain / 5 February 2025
5 February 2025
MPs condemn Home Office after it wasted £15.4m on derelict prison to house asylum seekers
A view of the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge at Portlan
Britain / 26 November 2024
26 November 2024
A view of HMP Northeye in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, which
Britain / 15 November 2024
15 November 2024
Government urged to put ‘clear distance between it and the cruel, wasteful camps policy held by the previous one’