EMBARGOED until 13 May 0600 UK/0500 GMT- MSF/DOTW report "A Lonely Place": How Wethersfield is harming people seeking asylum ​ 

13 May 2025 - Médecins Sans Frontières UK (MSF) and Doctors of the World UK (DOTW) are releasing a report, including some previously unheard asylum seekers’ testimonies (audio and case studies), based on data collected over 12 months while treating people accommodated at Wethersfield mass containment site in Essex. We call on the UK Government to close Wethersfield as a matter of urgency and abandon its policy of mass containment for people seeking safety. 

DOTW in partnership with MSF ran a primary healthcare mobile clinic outside Wethersfield’s main gates from November 2023 to December 2024. We documented how the site, which accommodates up to 800 men aged between 18 and 65, causes immense harm. ​ 

Our report highlights serious safeguarding failings by the Home Office and its private contractor Clearsprings Ready Homes (CRH), high levels of mental distress amongst individuals accommodated here, as well as the dangerous journeys people are forced to take to the UK, in the absence of safe alternatives. ​ 

Kassim* “I have what do you call it – depression pills I think they call it. To make me go to sleep – I take sleeping pills, it didn’t work. I took some medicine, I feel like a zombie when I take it – I was not happy I was not sad, I was in a dark place. I took that for a month, after I stopped it because I was getting worse. Start hating life, for no reason. When you come out, it is a 30-minute walk to get to the nearest town here. All of us men, we are frustrated. The weirdest thing is, a lot of people attempt suicide, that is affecting me more than I don’t know what. Up until now I feel like, 10 people they try to kill themselves when I was on (sic) the camp.” *Not his real name – changed for anonymity. 

Mental health support was inadequate. The most vulnerable people were not removed. Those fleeing violence, war, persecution, and other forms of hardship require therapeutic mental health support and trauma-informed services. ​ While basic mental health support is offered onsite, there are no specialised services. Our medical team observed that mental health concerns - such as depression, anxiety and sleep difficulties – are often managed through routine prescriptions of antidepressants and sleeping tablets, while accessing prescriptions can be challenging due to the site’s remote location. 

Mahdi* “We were at sea for about 8 hours, the waves were very high during that time, until we were close to an island - they call it Samos Island, a Greek Island. A boat approached us carrying people covering their faces, they stopped our inflatable boat, and they were in their boat. We thought they were from the Greek Coastguard, but they weren’t the coastguard they were what we call their ‘mercenaries’. There were women, there were I think Afghans, they had families...They stopped us and blew our boat up. They took us into their boat, they took all of us and they took our clothes and left us in our underwear and tortured us on their boat. They took everything from us. Our phones and all our money [...] they brought what they call it a basket [dinghy]? A basket they inflate, and they were throwing people into it, they threw children. Whoever reaches the sea drowns and whoever makes it into the basket is rescued. They threw us, but we as young men, we could bear it but think about the women. I remember there was a woman who was eight months pregnant. I swear one of the men was hitting her on the stomach. Then we went to rescue whoever we could.” *Not his real name – changed for anonymity. 

Our medical team met men who had experienced a boat sinking while attempting to cross the Channel. Despite this, they received no additional support onsite. Increased policing and deterrence measures along the Northern coast in France, and funded by the UK, have led to people taking riskier journeys. ​ 

Anwar* “[T]he bus took us past lots of trees and drove for a long time, so we were shocked when we arrived at the gate. Many of us refused to get off the bus, some left, some didn’t. We were confused. The security guards told us we had to get off the bus, so we did. They started to interview us, and they said good things, that we would have everything here, but we were still in a state of shock, we didn’t know anything. We are completely isolated from the world, I mean you barely go to the city just as I did today, you arrive at 11:30 and the bus returns at 1:00pm, you don’t even know what to do in the one hour and half, and then we come back. It is exhausting, two and a half months. I swear to Allah I have struggled so much.” *Not his real name – changed for anonymity. 

Our team documented serious failures to protect and safeguard the men held at Wethersfield, including a lack of coordination and pathways for identifying and sharing safeguarding concerns about residents among relevant organisations (including the Home Office, Clearsprings Ready Homes, the onsite medical team, and the local authority. Many people seeking safety are forced to take dangerous journeys to reach the UK and end up in contingency accommodation, including Wethersfield. Despite the evidence that mass containment causes immense psychological harm and suffering, Wethersfield remains open. In April 2025, the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, refused to set a date on when the site would close. 

"Most of the consultations were for psychological problems. Many people felt anxious and stressed and said Wethersfield reminds them of previous difficult experiences such as imprisonment, torture or living in areas of conflict,” says Emma Withycombe, MSF Medical Activities Manager. “It seems very cruel that people who have experienced so much hardship are now living here. Our government has chosen to accommodate people in a place that causes harm." 

"People are dying at the UK borders, dying in camps and hotels. Our patients in Wethersfield have survived conflict, persecution, and harrowing journeys to the UK with no safe route to asylum. The government should not be putting refugees into camps once they arrive here,” adds Simon Tyler, Doctors of the World Executive Director. 

“It is beyond comprehension that Wethersfield remains open, a site which has been the source of intense suffering for people who came to the UK in search of safety. From MSF's work at the site, we know many of the individuals accommodated here have experienced violence and trauma and will have complex psychological needs,” states Jacob Burns, MSF UK Migration Operations Manager. ​ “We had hoped this Labour Government would establish a dignified and compassionate asylum system. Instead, we are witnessing a continuation of the same inhumane and restrictive policies, that are fundamentally failing those who are most in need of care and protection.” 

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