Family complain after room booking is cancelled as hotel is instead filled with Afghan refugees
Family complain after their Reading Festival room booking is cancelled as hotel is instead filled with migrants fleeing Afghanistan
Family heading to Reading Festival have complained that their hotel booking was unilaterally cancelled Mercure George Hotel in Reading is instead housing refugees fleeing Afghanistan for the Home OfficeThe four-star Tudor-style building in King Street is owned by hotel chain Accor and has 76 rooms
A family due to make their annual trip to Reading Festival have complained that their hotel booking was unilaterally cancelled with just a week’s notice after the Home Office requisitioned all the rooms available to house refugees fleeing Afghanistan.
The unnamed family said they had booked two rooms at the Mercure George Hotel in King Street more than a year ago and had been due to travel down from Doncaster in Yorkshire on Sunday, August 29 for the music event when their stay was cancelled.
In an email sent to the family on Sunday, August 22 seen by BerkshireLive, the four-star hotel said: ‘We are sure you have been watching the recent turn of events with horror and disbelief and maybe have at times thought if there was some way to help them.
‘As the scale of the crisis in Afghanistan grow, the Home Office are struggling with the number of refugees to re-home. They have started to reach out to local authorities to ask for help within their communities for housing.
‘We have been approached by the Home Office to house these people, after much deliberation we have agreed to house these people for the interim.
‘We have not taken this decision lightly and know the effect it has on you and your plans, however we feel it was the right decision to make in view of the humanitarian crisis facing these people.’
The Tudor-style Mercure owned by hotel chain Accor has 76 rooms. It is not known how long the refugees will be housed in the hotel, or how many other hotels have been approached and taken over by the Home Office to resettle fleeing Afghans.
However, a Home Office spokesman refused to ‘provide a running commentary on accommodation that may or may not be under consideration for those claiming asylum or arriving in the UK from Afghanistan for safeguarding reasons’ when approached by MailOnline.
A source added: ‘People are going to die if we don’t do this.
The family had apparently booked two rooms at the Mercure George Hotel in King Street (pictured) a year ago and had been due to travel down from Doncaster on August 29 for the music event when their stay was cancelled
A family heading to Reading Festival have complained that their hotel booking was unilaterally cancelled after the Home Office took over the building to house refugees fleeing Taliban-controlled Afghanistan (stock image of Reading Festival in 2019)
An RAF plane was filled to capacity with embassy staff, British nationals and any Afghans able to settle in the UK
Afghan refugees arrive at RAQF Brize Norton airbase in the UK early today after being evacuated from Afghanistan
Graph showing the number of people evacuated from Kabul, Afghanistan, by country as of August 23, 2021 at 1700 GMT
‘It is a staggered process, I cannot say how long they will be there. It depends on the local authority, the first people in the hotel might get some housing for them to move into and then as the process goes on it might bottleneck but it is impossible to say.
‘We are doing everything we can to support people in life threatening situations, we will support them in hotel accommodation and that will be until they can be moved to more permanent accommodation.’
The Mercure hotel said in its email: ‘We have been looking forward to your stay at the Mercure George, however due to a turn in circumstances as advised above we have to request you to look to make some alternative arrangements.
‘We do hope and are sure that our guest – you – will help us support these people in these dire times and understand our dilemma.’
The mother told BerkshireLive: ‘Experience says it’s impossible to get taxis when the festival is on, so one of us will have to not drink for the day and park in one of the local multi-storeys. It sounds incredibly privileged and makes me feel quite uncomfortable to complain about this.
‘I know what these people are going through is thousands of times worse than us losing our hotel booking. But at the same time, I feel the bookings should’ve been honoured. At this time of year, most of the people there would’ve been only there for this weekend.’
A Home Office spokesman told MailOnline: ‘The UK has a proud history of protecting people in life-threatening situations and we are determined to help as many Afghans as possible through the Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme.
‘We do not provide a running commentary on accommodation that may or may not be under consideration for those claiming asylum or arriving in the UK from Afghanistan, for safeguarding reasons.’
MailOnline has contacted Accor and the Mercure George Hotel for comment.
Councils are set to get grants from the government to rent or buy large homes for thousands of Afghan refugees. The average size of the families coming to the UK is thought to be seven, but at least one family is believed to be made up of 12 people.
So far local authorities have offered to host up to 2,500 people, but the numbers seeking refuge under the scheme for Afghans who helped British forces could reach five times that level.
Thousands more are expected to come to the UK under a separate longer-term resettlement scheme for those vulnerable to persecution by the Taliban.
Although the details are unclear, the suggestion of grants to buy homes could spark resentment in local communities, with many Britons struggling to afford such properties.
It comes amid fears more than 1,000 Afghans who assisted British troops face being left behind when mercy flights cease in the coming days.
A Government source told the Times: ‘The greatest challenge is that councils simply don’t have enough vacant properties. We are looking at other options which could see councils renting properties of the right size or even purchasing them and adding them to their long-term housing stock.’
More than 100 local councils have pledged their support in rehoming displaced Afghans since the first RAF rescue mission for those fleeing Kabul landed in the United Kingdom last week.
A member of the RAF escorts a group of children who arrived at Brize Norton airbase early on Tuesday morning
An elderly woman is helped across the tarmac at RAF Brize Norton today after arriving on a flight from Afghanistan
Diplomats insist that the situation on the ground has improved since the weekend with more people being allowed into the airport, but satellite images showed huge crowds continuing to mass
Evacuations have been underway in Afghanistan since the Taliban took control of the country on August 13 after American troops were pulled from the country
Thousands of Afghans could be left behind in Kabul as ministers push to extend the deadline for the last British evacuation flight beyond Tuesday. Pictured: British citizens catching a flight earlier this week
Local authorities across the country, from Wiltshire to Northumberland, have committed to taking in displaced Afghans as Boris Johnson launched plans to resettle up to 25,000 refugees over five years.
Families fleeing Afghanistan have been rehomed in West Yorkshire, Portsmouth, Hampshire, Surrey and Melton in Leicestershire.
Council leaders and mayors in Liverpool, London, Kent and Essex have all shared strong statements promising to provide support in their communities in the wake of the Taliban’s devastating advance to Kabul. Councils have already been offered about £10,000 per Afghan refugee to help provide them with accommodation and support.
Evacuation flights out of Kabul have been stepped up on to a ‘war footing’ with time fast running out to rescue people as an August 31 deadline for all forces to be out of the country looms large.
The United States said some 16,000 people boarded mercy flights between Sunday morning and Monday afternoon while Britain managed to air-lift 2,000 in the last 24 hours.
NATO now puts the total number of people evacuated since the Taliban took power 10 days ago at 50,000, but that is still well short of the more-than 100,000 refugees that western nations had promised to take.
G7 leaders including Britain, France and Germany are set to pressure US President Joe Biden into extending the August 31 deadline today – though British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said he does not expect the date to budge.
Jean-Yves le Drian, the French foreign minister, said his country would be forced to stop flights on Thursday this week if America sticks with the August 31 date – while Spain warned today that citizens will get left behind unless the deadline is extended.
He spoke as a NATO diplomat said flights are now being conducted on a ‘war footing’ amid a race to get everyone who has been promised sanctuary out of the country before August 31.
The diplomat said the situation at Kabul is calming down as Taliban guards allow more people into the airfield and some Afghans without travel paperwork head home – though images and footage from the ground today suggest thousands are still crammed up against military checkpoints.
Democratic US Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, told reporters after a briefing by intelligence officials that he did not believe the evacuation could be completed in the eight remaining days.
‘I think it’s possible but I think it’s very unlikely given the number of Americans who still need to be evacuated,’ Schiff said.
A Taliban official said on Monday an extension would not be granted, though he said foreign forces had not sought one. Washington said negotiations were continuing.
Many locals fear reprisals and a return to Sharia that the Taliban enforced while in power from 1996 to 2001, including the brutalisation and repression of female Afghans.
And now the UN has raised fears of famine and economic ruin awaiting even those who escape the worst effects of Taliban rule, with the region in a drought and aid shipments into the country halted.
Andrew Patterson, head of the World Food Programme, said that some 7,000 metric tonnes of food have been blocked from getting into the country after Kabul airport was closed to commercial flights.
‘We need another 54,000 metric tonnes of food to get the Afghan people through to the end of December. We could start running out of food by September,’ he warned.
‘Winter is coming. We are going into the lean season and many Afghan roads will be covered in snow. We need to get the food into our warehouses where it needs to be distributed.’
There have been isolated but numerous incidents of Taliban aggression and intolerance reported on social media, as well as reports of Taliban searches for old enemies, fanning those fears.
Australia evacuated more than 50 female Afghan Paralympians, athletes and their dependents after securing visas for them, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported on Tuesday.
Leaders of the United States, Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Canada, and Japan who meet virtually later on Tuesday may use the possibility of unified official recognition, or renewed sanctions to push the Taliban to comply with pledges to respect women’s rights and international relations.
‘The G7 leaders will agree to coordinate on if, or when to recognise the Taliban,’ said one European diplomat. ‘And they will commit to continue to work closely together.’
