UK broke law by housing refugees in ‘squalid’ conditions: Court

Refugee advocates welcome the High Court ruling on Napier Barracks in southeast England.

The United Kingdom’s Conservative government broke the law when it housed asylum seekers in overcrowded and “squalid” disused army barracks, the High Court has ruled. Six asylum seekers brought the case against British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s administration, arguing that conditions at Napier Barracks posed “real and immediate risks to life and of ill-treatment”. Judge Thomas Linden on Thursday ruled in favour of the men, determining that the site did not ensure “a standard of living which was adequate for the health of the claimants”.