Nusrat Raza, a young Pakistani woman, was seen by a passer-by as a 'great ball of fire coming down the stairs' of her house. Raza, an asylum seeker who lived in Bradford, had recently been told that the Home Office had refused her claim to stay in the country.

At least 221 asylum seekers, refugees and migrant workers have died violent deaths in the UK in the past 17 years. They have committed suicide or been the victims of racist attacks; or they have suffered accidents while in transit or at work, mostly in the black economy. In Driven to Desperate Measures, Harmit Athwal has gathered information from press reports and from interviews with asylum seekers and refugees, NGOs, charities and social workers. Her research makes clear that Britain, far from being somewhere to escape to, is, for thousands of asylum seekers and migrants, a place of misery and danger.

LRB 16 November 2006 | PDF Download