Death of an asylum seeker

Eyob Tafira was just 27 years old when he decided to end it all and throw himself into the cold dark waters of Swansea Bay. He worked as a lecturer in sports journalism in his home town of Addis Abbaba in Ethiopia until 2014, when, having seen IS carrying out beheadings, and realising that as an academic he might well be next, he fled.

He undertook a difficult, dangerous and expensive journey through the Sahel and Sahara desert before getting on a boat in Libya and finding himself in Italy. He then made his way to Calais and managed to make it to Dover. He declared himself an asylum seeker, but the authorities denied him that status and labelled him an illegal immigrant. As such he was denied both benefits and the right to work. He landed up in Bristol but in 2015 a close friend was murdered. Suffering from severe PTSD, he made his way to Wales, where, still denied the opportunity to make a living and slowly starving to death, he took what many might see as the only way out.

I recently read a book called The Unchosen, by Mya Guarneri. In starkly uncompromising tones, she writes about the horribly unjust way Israel deals with its asylum seekers and ‘illegals’. Once invited in by a government facing a labour shortage, most of these people found jobs paying below the minimum wage, jobs which Israelis simply didn’t want to do: carers, maids, cleaners, servants in other words. They weren’t allowed to get married or even have relationships, facing jail or expulsion should they break the law. Then the state decided it didn’t want them anymore and starting expelling them en masse. It was an extremely upsetting read, but stories like Eyob’s make one realise we are in no position to be morally lofty about the way Israel operates.

Despite Brexit problems, the UK remains one of the wealthiest nations on Earth. Yet we continue to operate an inhumane policy towards some of the most desperate and indigent people on this Earth. What are these people’s chances once Brexit is a an established fact? Even worse than they are now, if such a thing is possible.