Homeless refugees who face being forced to leave a camp of tents in a city centre have told of enduring freezing temperatures for months after escaping war-torn countries.
BBC reports that many of the group mainly young men have been staying in the tents in St Peter’s Square in Manchester after successfully applying for asylum in the UK.
The camp is set to be cleared by Manchester City Council after a legal challenge by campaigners failed.
Adel Youssef fled the civil war in Sudan. He said his situation living in tents was “not good”.
Mamadi Camara arrived in the UK from the West African country of Equatorial Guinea. He said he had been sleeping in tents over the winter. According to him, the past three months had been “very cold”.
Adam Abdullah, a refugee from Sudan said despite the threat of being moved, he still planned to try and make a home in the city after spending months in the tents. He fled “lots of fighting” in the Darfur region of Sudan before he was successfully granted asylum.
He said although he felt safe in Manchester, the freezing temperature had been a struggle.
Mimicia Titianu is from Romania. He said he had been sleeping in the cold with no money for the tram, the bus, or food and lived off “one sandwich and one coffee a day”.
“This is my life, day after day,” he said.
Many of the refugees moved to Manchester after being granted asylum in other parts of the UK in the belief the city was cheaper and they were more likely to get support.
However, local authorities have said they are often low on the list for social housing. The refugees have arrived in a city where support for the homeless is already struggling to meet demand.
The council asked for a possession order to clear the site because the area was “not a safe or sanitary place” to access its support services, a spokesperson said.
At a hearing on Friday, a judge described the refugees as “trespassers in law” when he ruled their tents must be removed as the square was a public amenity “available to all.”
