He was detained for years now and the Home Office could not remove him because they couldn’t get travel documents. And on Monday they took him to hospital and he died today.

He was from Sierra Leone, the same country as me. I met him in detention – he was here when I came here a year ago. He was a very quiet man- he kept himself to himself. He was very caring man. He was helpful to people doing application and writing letters. He used to work in the welfare office in detention.

We are told the focus of detention is removal. But I don’t see the justification for detaining someone for 1 year, for 2 year, for 3 years. And you’re telling me the purpose is to remove people? For a lot of people here, it’s like that. I’m a person in a wheel chair and I’ve got polio in my right leg. He was posing no risk to anyone. So I don’t think there’s a justification for keeping people here. In this prison. I don’t see the justification.

I think it’s politics. I think it’s politics. I can’t justify it. It’s very unfair. This is a country that promotes human rights – they are the first one’s to do so. They are the forefront of women’s rights and this kind of thing. But what would the rest of the world think about this. It’s not right. It’s not proper. You need to detain people only for a specified time given by the judiciary. But they don’t follow it! They don’t care about detainees.

I don’t know why they do it – is there financial gain? I don’t know, I don’t understand.

The tone is not good at Morton Hall. Everyone is sad. No one likes the situation.

Basically, a guy I knew died today in Morton Hall. We called him ‘the Doctor’. He was living in the UK for 27 years now. He got arrested for false documents and sentenced to 6 months in jail. After that, they brought him to Morton Hall where he stayed for 2 years.

The guy, I knew today, is a really, really nice person. He exercised a lot. He was very fit. So when he got sick on Monday, it was really confusing because he was a very fit guy.

He fell down and was foaming at the mouth in his cell. Some guys called the nurse around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. The nurse came and then left and he got worse. They came back at 6 o’clock. And the ambulance came there about 7 o’clock. And he died this morning ( on Wednesday)

As I understand, when they were in the hospital the doctors called the home office and asked for his release papers. I thought this was really cold hearted because he has been applying for bail for a long time and only when he was on his death bed did they give him release papers.

He’s a friend of mine. I’ve known him since June when I got into this place. He was really a nice person and was always willing to help people. He would just help people through the goodness of his heart for nothing in return. He was a really nice person. You don’t often find people like that. When you find them it’s like a diamond in the rough, you know.

He’s also the type of person who you can talk to if you’re stressed out in detention. He would talk to you and say keep strong when he saw that you were depressed or stressed out. When a guy like that leaves us like this, it puts a lot of stress on the people who really connected with him on a spiritual level.

You see, if he was given bail and left here. People would have been proud and happy. But the way he left, really weighs heavy on your heart.

The media needs to know about this. This place is a stressful place. He’s been punished. We don’t have anyone to stand for us. I just want the home office to start helping people and stop being so vindictive and punishing people. There are not all bad people here and people deserve a second chance. They are breaking people’s spirits.