A REFUGEE has been on hunger strike for 12 days in protest at conditions at a Stockport hotel run for the Home Office by disgraced outsourcing firm Serco.

Manchester-based refugee support group Rapar (Refugee and Asylum-seeker Participatory Action Research) reported that it had investigated the hotel and found shocking conditions, including inedible food, skin diseases, abuse by staff and rubbish piled up on landings.

Serco and the Home Office denied that such conditions existed, but Stockport Council said that it shared Rapar’s concerns about the hotel.

Council leader Mark Hunter said: “The asylum-seekers and Stockport residents are suffering. 

“Asylum-seekers have been cooped up in a hotel for months and this inhumane treatment acts as a Petri dish for mental health issues in a cohort that are already vulnerable.”

Rapar founder Dr Rhetta Moran said that one refugee staying in the hotel with his family had gone on hunger strike, not eating since November 2.

The refugee was taken to hospital two days later after collapsing, according to Rapar.

He has been told that he will be returned to the hotel, but both he and his wife are frightened of going back because of the abuse they say they were subjected to in the past, according to the group, which said that the man had asked Stockport council and local MPs to help him find safe housing elsewhere.

Serco and the Home Office have been invited to comment.