Illegal Immigrants Evacuated From Barge After Legionella Found

Home Office says it is a 'precautionary measure'

The Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge arrives into Falmouth docks, Cornwall, to undergo inspection on May 9, 2023. Matt Keeble/PA Media

A group of illegal immigrants have been evacuated from the Bibby Stockholm barge, at the port of Portland on the south coast, after the Legionella bacteria was discovered in the water supply.

The Home Office said it was removing all 39 asylum seekers who were on board the vessel as a “precautionary measure.”

Legionella is a bacteria which can cause Legionnaires’ disease, which can cause fever, cough, shortness of breath and aches and pains, and is fatal in around 10 to 15 percent of cases.

The Home Office said none of those on board had fallen sick or developed Legionnaires’ disease and all were being provided with “appropriate advice and support.”

Sky News has reported Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick is chairing a series of urgent meetings about the situation.

The evacuation comes only four days after the first 15 asylum seekers boarded the barge on Monday amid great controversy.

Initially the Home Office planned to put more than 50 migrants on the barge this week but 20 were granted a last-minute reprieve after a series of legal challenges.

With a capacity of more than 500, the government hoped the Bibby Stockholm, together with the use of former military bases, would help reduce the £6 million a day it is spending on hotels to accommodate illegal immigrants—many of whom have arrived across the English Channel on small boats—who are waiting for their claims to be processed.

On Thursday 755 illegal immigrants were recorded as having crossed the English Channel in small boats, the highest daily number this year.

Following the discovery of Legionella on board, the Home Office issued a statement which said: “The health and welfare of individuals on the vessel is our utmost priority. Environmental samples from the water system on the Bibby Stockholm have shown levels of Legionella bacteria which require further investigation.”

Home Office Says it Will Adhere to ‘Protocol’

It went on, “Following these results, the Home Office has been working closely with UKHSA and following its advice in line with long-established public health processes, and ensuring all protocol from Dorset Council’s environmental health team and Dorset NHS is adhered to.”

“As a precautionary measure, all 39 asylum seekers who arrived on the vessel this week are being disembarked while further assessments are undertaken. No individuals on board have presented with symptoms of Legionnaires’, and asylum seekers are being provided with appropriate advice and support,” the Home Office added.

A culture of the Legionella pneumophila bacteria at the UZ Gent hospital in Belgium on May 17, 2019. Nicholas Maeterlinck/AFP via Getty Images

The statement concluded: “The samples taken relate only to the water system on the vessel itself and therefore carry no direct risk indication for the wider community of Portland nor do they relate to fresh water entering the vessel. Legionnaires’ disease does not spread from person to person.”

On Sunday the shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said Labour would keep using barges to accommodate asylum seekers “for a very short-term period” if it won the next general election.

But on Friday, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Across the country, most people want strong border security and a properly managed and controlled asylum system so the UK does its bit alongside other countries to help those who have fled persecution and conflict, while those who have no right to be here are swiftly returned.”

“Under this government, we have neither as gangs are undermining our border security and the asylum system is in chaos,” she added.

Charity: ‘Latest Mismanagement’

Steve Smith, chief executive of the charity Care4Calais, said: “We have always known our concerns over the health and safety of the barge are justified, and this latest mismanagement proves our point.”

“The Bibby Stockholm is a visual illustration of this government’s hostile environment against refugees, but it has also fast become a symbol for the shambolic incompetence which has broken Britain’s asylum system.”

Earlier this week immigration minister Sarah Dines said those arriving in the country via unauthorised means should have “basic but proper accommodation” and said they “can’t expect to stay in a four-star hotel.”

The discovery of Legionella on the Bibby Stockholm is an unfortunate episode in the government’s “small boats week,” in which it is making a series of announcements on an issue Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has promised to solve.

Legionnaires’ disease gets its name because the first recorded outbreak happened in 1976 during a convention in Philadelphia of the American Legion.

Of the 2,000 legionnaires who attended the convention at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, 200 developed a lung infection which caused a type of pneumonia which eventually became known as Legionnaires’ disease and 34 of those died.

PA Media contributed to this report.