A HOTEL housing asylum-seekers where a five-year-old Afghan boy fell to his death last week had previously been cleared of people on the grounds it was unfit for habitation, campaigners said today. 

Mohammed Munib Majeedi fell from the window of the Sheffield Metropolitan Hotel, Blonk Street, at around 2.30pm last Wednesday.

The youngster, who is understood to have arrived in Britain with his family this summer as the Taliban overran Afghanistan, fell onto a car park behind the hotel.

Sheffield Labour MPs Louise Haigh, Clive Betts, Olivia Blake, Paul Blomfield and Gill Furniss have written to Home Secretary Priti Patel to call for a “full, urgent, independent inquiry” into Mohammed’s death and the placement of vulnerable refugees in the hotel. 

Asylum-seekers were allegedly housed there in August 2020, but concerns about fire safety saw them relocated, campaigners said.

The Home Office did not deny a statement from Sheffield City Council which said the government department had stopped using the hotel in November. 

Ms Haigh, MP for Sheffield Heeley, warned the fact that families had been removed from the hotel “demonstrates they know that it is unsafe and unsuitable.

“It’s just absolutely appalling that the family fled unimaginable horror in Afghanistan, to come to this country seeking safe haven, and now [they] have to face this tragedy of equally unimaginable proportions.

“The Home Office has a duty of care, and clearly [it] has been at the very least undermined, if not breached.”

The Refugee Council also called for a review of the accommodation being offered to those fleeing the Taliban. 

Mohammed’s father is thought to have worked at the British embassy in Kabul.

The family, including both parents, three boys and two girls, reportedly arrived in Britain in the last few weeks at Birmingham Airport, before quarantining in Manchester as per Covid-19 regulations. They are thought to have moved into the Metropolitan Hotel early last week. 

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are extremely saddened by the tragic death of a child. The police are providing support to the family while the investigation continues and we are providing accommodation and support.

“We are absolutely committed to ensuring that Afghan refugees are appropriately accommodated and supported and we are working hard with local authorities to deliver this.”