FEARS are growing for the wellbeing of nearly 500 undocumented migrants who have been on hunger strike in Belgium in a bid to be granted legal status.

At least four men are known to have stitched their mouths together and others are said to be seriously weakened as a result of their action, while the Belgian government remains unmoved.

After visiting the hunger-strikers this weekend, the Socialist Women’s Union (SKB) has demanded urgent action from Brussels before any deaths occur.

About 475 people have been occupying the Free University of Brussels and a church in the Belgian capital for more than a month. Almost half of them have been on hunger strike since May 23.

Many of them have been living in Belgium for years, powering the so-called parallel economy in low-paid jobs in construction, restaurants or factories.

But they have been branded the stranded of the pandemic, having lost their income as a result of coronavirus restrictions. Without legal status they are not entitled to healthcare, housing or access to other kinds of services.

The situation is becoming critical: numbers of the hunger strikers are in increasingly poor condition, according to medical volunteers on the ground. But the government is refusing to negotiate, insisting that it will not be blackmailed into providing support.

Junior Minister for Asylum and Immigration Sammy Mahdi said the government would not agree to recognise the status of an estimated 150,000 undocumented migrants as it would encourage others.

“Life is never a price worth paying,” he told Reuters last week, saying that he did not wish to give the hunger strikers false hope.

“There are rules and regulations. Whether it is around education, whether it is around jobs, whether it is around migration, politics needs to have rules,” he said.