‘Where is the outcry about deaths in British immigration detention centres?’

In the aftermath of the suspected suicide on the Bibby Stockholm, a concerned reader highlights grim conditions in immigration detention facilities, describing distressing scenes of poor mental health and two suicides during his niece’s detention.

If such issues persist in British migrant facilities and asylum housing, what can be expected beyond British shores in Rwanda? Especially, as the country has already been deemed unsafe.

Read on to see what readers think about this issue, among others.

Share your thoughts in the comments.

My niece was wrongly held in an immigration holding facility...

The suspected suicide of the poor distressed man on the Bibby Stockholm barge housing asylum seekers is sad (Metro, Thu). Could no one on there help him? Call for help?

Also, let’s bear in mind the deaths in holding facilities for people whose immigration status is being investigated.

My niece was wrongly held in one of these centres as a result of a paperwork mistake. She witnessed horrible scenes of mental health issues and two suicides occurred while she was there.

Where is the outcry about those deaths? A, Yorkshire

Instead of this country paying millions to France and Rwanda, we need to be going along the French coast and finding where the people smugglers are keeping the boats or launching them from.

There will be a big outcry if any of the immigrants sent to Rwanda dies by suicide as one has done on the barge at Portland.

Are we going to have British personnel overseeing their treatment and processing out there or hope that they want to go back home and start the process all over again? Christine, London

Wait, so the Tories ordered net zero minister Graham Stuart home from COP28 to make him vote to support the Rwanda Bill? Then he had to fly back to Dubai? Unbelievable. We are in a climate crisis way more dire even than Covid, which was devastating. We need an immediate, drastic response. Sophie, London

Is COP28 a Cop out?

The COP28 climate change agreement reached in Dubai, that the world should ‘transition’ away from fossil fuel, is not worth the paper it’s written on.

The very fine words spouted by the delegates attending the conference are unlikely to be translated into firm action unless the agreements are legally binding.

In the meantime, the world will continue to burn and flood, while we idly stand by watching the destruction of our planet. Alan, North London

‘Why could we “Eat Out to Help Out” but not go out and help our loved ones?’

Defending Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out plan, Bernard (MetroTalk, Thu) says ‘the government was quite right in letting us decide for ourselves whether to take the well-publicised risk of eating out’.

So why didn’t the government let us decide for ourselves whether we should meet up with our families or visit relatives in hospitals and care homes or hold parties?

People were being fined for deciding for themselves to do these things. Martin, London

‘Readers share their thoughts on Covid-19 Inquiry’

I could not believe Col Blake’s letter (MetroTalk, Wed). To say Covid was
beyond government control shows a total ignorance of the Tories’ shameful handling of the pandemic.

The spread of the disease most certainly could have been controlled but they chose to eject infected elderly people from hospital into care homes with no after-care plan, locked down later than practically every other country, re-opened far too quickly, ignored advice from scientists despite stating ‘we’re being led by the science’, then flouted their own rules. Phil, Hertfordshire

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Covid Inquiry is designed to distract from what should be the main issues, namely: did lockdowns have any effect on the number of deaths? Was the evidence on which the government based its decisions – particularly that from Professor Neil Ferguson – reliable?

Was there any medicine available to treat Covid prior to the vaccines and if so why wasn’t it used? Have the vaccines been ‘safe and effective’ and why have the companies manufacturing them been indemnified from prosecution?

The answers to these questions have simply been asserted without debate on the evidence – instead we are treated to the trivia of ministerial conversations. Alex White, London

Please can we stop talking about Covid and the rights and wrongs of the government. It is getting boring. Covid happened and as we approach 2024, let us all move on. Leave Boris alone and get on with your own sad lives. Vicki, West Midlands

Were you upset about David Cameron’s political comeback?

Agatha (MetroTalk, Wed) sounds unhappy that the rest of the country still don’t agree with her politically, saying she cannot believe there are people who think Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are worthy of any respect.

I wonder if she was also upset when David Cameron strutted back into politics recently. After all, he and George Osborne threatened the British public with a ‘punishment budget’ if they voted to leave the EU, with a recession and a million unemployed. They also implied Brexit could be a threat to peace in Europe. None of which materialised.

If these threats hadn’t been uttered, the vote to leave may have been greater still.

Agatha would do well to consider that 17.4million people could still have voted to leave the EU, whether Nigel Farage had anything to do with it or not. David, Durham

Emmerdale Farm, as it once was, has become a seedy backwater of smut television.

The producers should follow the example of Heartbeat, which stayed true to its purpose which was to show life in a rural setting with crime and comedy.

Emmerdale, with its smut and violence, is a sad incitement of what society allegedly wants. Paddy, Doncaster

MORE : Asylum seeker found dead on Bibby Stockholm barge ahead of Rwanda vote

MORE : ‘Placing small boat asylum seekers like me on the Bibby Stockholm will re-traumatise them’

MORE : Arriving in the UK as a refugee, a stranger welcomed me into her family