Evacuated the barge of migrants, just inaugurated: legionella nightmare

Covid had taught us: gatherings are dangerous. And, during the pandemic, with the borders closed, migration too had come to a halt. Now the protagonist is not a virus, but a bacterium: legionella. And he presented himself on the controversial Bibby Stockholm platform, the one that Rishi Sunak’s government has set up in front of Portland to welcome migrants, waiting for their asylum applications to be examined. Irony of fate?

All 39 asylum seekers on board were therefore evacuated today 11 August, and will be transferred to alternative accommodation, after the dangerous bacterium was found in the barge’s water system. Pathogen causes severe lung infection called Legionnaires’ disease, contracted by breathing in the tiny water droplets containing the bacteria. Interior Ministry officials assured that none of the migrants had contracted the disease on board, but further assessments of the boat and the people are needed.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick seems to be busy in meetings to discuss what to do, because without a doubt this unexpected event – where the UN or Amnesty International was unable – is a setback for the plan to transfer asylum seekers to the barge, which was supposed to host up to 500 migrants. In fact, the Sunak government plans to unblock an agreement with Rwanda to transfer those trying to cross the Channel illegally to the African state, or evaluates the hypothesis of transferring them to Ascension Island, in the South Atlantic, a British overseas territory between Africa and South America.