Bethany Rielly
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by Bethany Rielly
FAMILY and friends of an asylum-seeker who died during an immigration raid in Newport more than three years ago are hopeful they’ll finally get answers at an inquest next week.
Sudanese asylum-seeker Mustafa Dawood, 23, fell through a roof while fleeing immigration officers at a car wash in Newport in June 2018, where he had been working illegally.
An inquest into his death is due to start on November 1 at Newport Coroners Court, three-and-a-half years after the incident.
Dawood’s friends say that they have been left waiting too long for answers about how the Home Office raid was carried out and for lessons to be learnt.
The Sanctuary project manager Mark Seymour, who knew Dawood through his work at the charity and was with him the night before he died, told the Morning Star: “It’s been a long wait.
“My concern is, if there were errors made or things need to be done differently, it’s been three-and-a-half years. I wouldn’t want anybody to go through what we’ve gone through here.
“That awful day when we heard he’d died, nobody else should have that awful experience.”
The inquest, which is listed over five days, comes after a 13-month investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which has yet to be published.
The death of the asylum-seeker, who fled persecution in Darfur, Sudan, arriving to Britain in 2015, sparked protests calling on ministers to lift a ban preventing asylum-seekers from working.
But three-and-a-half years later, the ban is still in place leaving asylum-seekers to survive on Home Office payments of less than £6 a day.
Charity Inquest’s spokesperson Lucy McKay said: “Mustafa’s death is at the sharpest end of the consequences of the hostile environment in this country which puts the safety, wellbeing, and lives of migrants at risk.
“We hope this inquest will provide some much-needed answers for his family and the public, and more broadly challenge the continued harms of Home Office policies.”
Mr Seymour added that the Newport community has not forgotten Dawood, who he described as a “lovely, popular, and easy-going” young man who “was eager to improve himself.”
“He was a valued guy here in Newport and we look forward to finding out the awful events of that tragic day for everyone involved.”
The Home Office declined to comment because the inquest is ongoing.
