Afghanistan Peace CampaignSocial Affairs Correspondent
Arriving in the darkness, the packed coach passes through the imposing metal fence and pulls up on a remote and silent army base. Shuffled off the coach one by one, the group of men, women and children are taken to a large hall, before being handed, among other items, a tube of toothpaste.
One woman is 38 weeks pregnant, desperate for a safe place to bring her child into the world. Others have been waiting more than a year to find sanctuary.
Finally, they are in the UK.
“Now we feel like we are home,” one Afghan father, who spent a year in a hotel in Pakistan waiting for relocation to the UK, told The Independent. “We are feeling better and out of pressure. We have been waiting for this moment, thinking of the day when we would arrive in the UK, and fortunately we are here now.”
This man is one of more than 1,000 Afghans staying temporarily at MoD Garats Hay in Leicestershire because of their years of service alongside the British armed forces in the war against the Taliban.
On 28 September, word went out to B Company, 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment, that they had 72 hours to mobilise Garats Hay – a base in the countryside 12 minutes drive from Loughborough – to welcome hundreds of Afghan families.
MoD Garats Hay is based on the old Beaumanor estate, which was requisitioned by the War Office in 1939 and used as a radio intercept station. After the war, it was used by the Royal Signals until 1998.
In the 2000s, the remote army base, which is surrounded by a high metal fence, was used as a sixth-form college to train students who wanted to join the army before it was then turned into a Covid isolation facility during the pandemic. Most recently, it had been used as a training and conference centre.
As Garats Hay had been in recent use, it is in a very different condition compared to military sites that have been offered to the Home Office to house asylum seekers.
The site is being used, along with Swynnerton camp in Staffordshire, to temporarily house families before they are moved into service accommodation homes. Some are first moved into flats on other barracks for six weeks while they are matched with a more permanent property.
When The Independent visited Garats Hay last week, there were 175 Afghans on site, comprising 40 families. Some 1,100 people have been processed through the base and there are 61 service men and women on site in a 24-hour operation.
Meanwhile, there were around 100 Afghans based at Swynnerton, an old Second World War training camp. In total, 126 service personnel have been deployed at seven locations across the country.
Afghans arriving from Pakistan are met off the plane by officials who get them on to coaches to Garats Hay, usually in the early hours of the morning. They disembark from the coaches in groups before being taken to the lecture hall for processing, where they are given a translated briefing pack and a box full of essentials such as toothpaste, baby food and snacks.
Those who are being moved on within a few hours to more permanent homes are put in a room that has been turned into a transit lounge, which has been fitted with pool and air hockey tables and mattresses.
Those who are staying at Garats Hay for a bit longer are sorted out with rooms in the five former student accommodation blocks. The MoD aims – but doesn’t always succeed – to get people through the site within two days. The longest one family had been at the base for was three weeks and two days when The Independent visited.
On-site is an old library which has been cleared out to make a prayer area, as well as an adjoining room transformed into a makeshift multi-faith space.Families have their food provided at the former school canteen
Families get canteen food provided during their stay, with a children’s menu for youngsters. A tuck shop is opened three times a week, providing raisins, digestive biscuits, Colgate toothpaste, infant milk, baby shampoo and other essentials.
Around 20 interpreters have been brought onto the site to live alongside the Afghan families to make sure they can communicate any issues to the army personnel. An army medic has also set up a GP clinic on-site three times a week for anyone who gets ill.
The medical team have already seen one case of malaria, a number of people with dengue fever and others with scabies, with protocols in place to try to halt any spread of infection.
The most challenging case so far was when one woman arrived at 38 weeks pregnant, having downplayed how far along she was out of desperation to finally leave the hotels in Pakistan.
The Afghan family had been trapped in Islamabad waiting on relocation for eight months. They were connected to the local NHS maternity services on their arrival and a baby daughter was delivered safely in the nearby hospital.
Although there is lots of open space on site for children to play, travelling outside the base is limited to prearranged taxis or car trips organised through the MoD personnel. These are mainly reserved for medical appointments, with a large whiteboard at the entrance mapping the timings of each journey.
One Afghan refugee had told The Independent previously that they were “just staring at the walls” with “nothing to do” and spoke of problems trying to access help.
But a father who we met on the site visit said he was happy that he was finally in the UK with his family, and no longer in the hotels in Islamabad.
Over 3,000 Afghans have been left in limbo in Islamabad since November 2022, after Rishi Sunak pressed to end the use of hotels in the UK and the MoD stopped flights here.
The stalemate was broken at the end of September when the Pakistani government announced that they would expel any undocumented refugees in the country, and the UK’s policy of inaction faced a court challenge.
The Afghan father said: “I arrived at the hotel in Islamabad on 9 November 2022. And we came here on 21 November 2023. It has been one year and 11 days that we have been there. It was a long time.”
He said his children were enjoying being able to freely move around on the base, and explained that he had spent the past year providing free English lessons to Afghans in the Pakistani hotels because the families did not have access to any education.
“I was teaching five classes per day in my hotel without any salary,” he said. “If you do nothing then you think too much in your mind, so I was teaching to ease pressure on myself.
“If I get to my permanent home, I would like to do teaching for a salary and I will proudly do it.”
After Garats Hay, families will be moved on into MoD-owned service homes, depending on the size of the group. Around 700 service homes are available within the MoD estate for families that need 2-3 bedrooms, but those who are travelling alone or in bigger families may have to wait longer for private rented accommodation.
Councils in North Yorkshire, Wiltshire, and Oxfordshire have met the MoD to discuss how the families can be helped into homes within their areas. Those waiting longer for housing are moved into barracks around the county, for an estimated six weeks. At these sites, counsellors help them set up bank accounts and apply for universal credit and housing benefit, although DWP officials have come to Garats Hay to start registering families at the base who will be waiting a bit longer.
One charity is in discussions with the site manager about visiting to provide English lessons for any families who stay at Garats Hay for a longer period. The local community has also responded to news of the Afghans’ arrival by delivering boxes of toys and clothes for the children.
While over 1,000 Afghans eligible for UK resettlement under the MoD’s Arap scheme have been processed through Garats Hay already, there are some 4,000 more who are waiting for relocation in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Armed forces minister James Heappey told The Independent that they were “working at the best speed we can to get people here”.
A few hundred Afghans who are eligible for relocation to the UK under Home Office and Foreign Office schemes are also stuck in Pakistan. Though some of these have been brought to Britain, the MoD is not responsible for their relocation. The Home Office did not comment on how the rest would be brought to the UK.