I was 26 years old when I arrived in Britain on a flimsy and dangerously overcrowded dinghy. I was desperate and there were no other options. I was traumatised from the torture I’d endured in Sudan and exhausted by the horrors of my journey. If Suella Braverman’s Illegal Migration Bill had existed then, I might not be alive today.
I know only too well the desperation that drives people to risk their lives trying to escape. The bill, which returns to Parliament this week for its report stage in the House of Lords, ignores the humanity of people like me who are forced to flee their homes and families in search of safety. It is misguided and cruel and will deny vital protection to men, women and children fleeing torture, war and persecution.
With the introduction of the bill, the government wants you to think it’s easy for refugees to go through the ‘proper channels’ to enter the UK, but that’s just not true. There was no visa I could apply for, no embassy queue I could join. Even if there had been, it would have been far too dangerous for me to alert anyone to the fact that I was trying to leave Sudan. I barely made it to the UK and when I did, I was broken, both mentally and physically.
