Home Office urged to be transparent about deaths of asylum seekers in its care | Immigration and asylum

Human rights and refugee campaigners are calling on the Home Office to be transparent about the number of asylum seekers who die in its care, as other government departments do, by publishing quarterly data.

The only way to obtain data on asylum seeker deaths is through freedom of information (FoI) requests to the Home Office, and authorities do not always comply. But the NHS produces regular figures on deaths in hospitals and the Ministry of Justice does so on deaths in custody.

According to FoI data, 51 people died in shelters provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2024; This is an increase of 11 from the previous year and a more than twelvefold increase from 2019, when four people died.

The ministry initially claimed that only 30 people had died that year, but was forced to apologize when it was revealed that 21 more people had died.

Deaths in recent years include Leonard Farruku of Albania, who died on the barge Bibby Stockholm in December 2023; Iranian Mehrab Omrani, who was thought to have lain dead in the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ accommodation for four months before her body was found in March 2024; and Hussein Haseeb Ahmed, an Iraqi Kurd who died at Manston processing center in Kent after contracting diphtheria in November 2022.

An amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 proposed publishing this data but was not adopted. Investigative journalism unit Freedom Investigates He unsuccessfully argued in his appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that the Home Office should have made these deaths public.

The ICO agreed with the Home Office, which said that “the prevention of possible abuse or violence towards vulnerable individuals and staff will outweigh any countervailing interest in transparency”.

The Home Office said that naming the deceased “may help indirectly identify relatives of the deceased and/or accommodation providers. This may expose relatives of the deceased to harassment or violence, particularly in light of recent events in August 2024 in which places of refuge were targeted.”

Officials added: “Targeting shelters in this way could also subject the staff working there to harassment or violence. We therefore believe that disclosing the requested information would lead to danger.”

The charity Asylum Matters is co-ordinating a campaign calling for publication of both the deaths of asylum seekers in Home Office custody and those who died trying to cross the Channel.

Louise Calvey, chief executive of Asylum Matters, said: “People are dying in our asylum system. They are dying at our borders, yes, but they are also dying in camps, hotels and other privately run, for-profit Home Office-funded accommodation. People are dying from suicide, dying from infectious diseases, dying preventable deaths. What we know for sure is that lives have been lost – but we don’t know how many.”

“This is a deeply shameful anomaly: when people die in state care in other settings, such as the prison system, there is a duty to report and track that data. Failure to track figures in the asylum system makes it impossible to take effective action to reduce these tragedies and sends a terrible message that the deaths of people seeking sanctuary do not matter.”

The Home Office has previously said it does not routinely inform family members when asylum seekers die in its care and does not want to publicly disclose details of these deaths in case it upsets them and “endangers their mental health”.

A department spokesman said: “Our thoughts and sympathies are with the families and friends of any asylum seekers or migrants who die. We took immediate action to reopen asylum proceedings and robust measures have been put in place to prioritize the safety of everyone in asylum. Our Border Security Bill will also make it an offense to endanger another life during dangerous small boat crossings, with a penalty of up to five years’ imprisonment.”