Ministers are facing serious questions after a five-year-old boy whose family had recently fled the Taliban fell to his death from a ninth-floor hotel window in Sheffield.
His family is understood to have arrived in Britain in recent weeks and was among a number of Afghan refugees temporarily housed at the £33-a-night Metropolitan hotel.
One hotel resident, who was an interpreter for the British in Afghanistan, said Mohammed’s father had worked at the UK embassy in Kabul. He said he heard the boy’s mother scream “my son, my son” after the child fell from the open window at about 2.30pm on Wednesday.
The Refugee Council called for the Home Office to launch an immediate investigation into the incident and whether any safeguarding assessments were carried out.
The Home Office had been told about safety concerns at the hotel, leading to questions about why the government placed families from Afghanistan there despite the concerns local officials raised.
The hotel was used for a short time last year as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers, but several families from Afghanistan have been placed in the hotel in recent weeks under the Home Office’s scheme to rescue those fleeing the Taliban.
Concerns had been raised previously about the safety of the hotel and its windows, which can open very wide. One guest wrote on the hotel’s Facebook page in 2019 that the windows “opened so wide I was scared my children would fall out”. She added: “Please don’t stay at this dangerous hotel.”
The budget hotel, which is being used to accommodate Afghan refugees who assisted the British authorities in their own country, was described as “absolutely disgusting”, “grimy” and “dirty” in online reviews as recently as last month.
9Naija 