Kamil Ahmad: failed by the Home Office, then murdered in Bristol | Rebecca Yeo

Kamil Ahmad was murdered in Bristol on the night of 7 July 2016. He had fled his home in Kurdistan, Iraq, after two years of brutal treatment in prison and years of conflict and violent repression following the occupation. He arrived in Bristol five years ago, at the age of 44, hoping to find peace and safety.

Kamil could be labelled a refused asylum seeker. Like so many his application had been refused. The suffering he had been through was not enough to persuade the Home Office that he deserved sanctuary. Being disabled and an asylum seeker and having your application refused are not just labels. As Kamil put it: “Everywhere is closed for me.”

I met Kamil in 2012 when working on a project with disabled asylum seekers in Bristol. At that time, Kamil was working on a fresh claim. His mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, made it difficult for him to concentrate, remember and provide the necessary evidence of the minute details of his experiences. Kamil had no secure place to live, no source of money, no knowing where he would get his next meal. What he did have was vast quantities of medication. He told me the doctors asked why he was taking his tablets on an empty stomach. He explained: “I don’t have any money, I don’t have any food.” He asked me why doctors could prescribe tablets but not food.

Comparing his experiences in the UK with those in Iraq, he told me, “When I was in Iraq the people smashed my head by stones, they laughed at me, they hit me, abused me … here in this country they don’t hit you … but they do mentally … is it the human right if somebody is a disabled person to be treated in this way?” But he was wrong. In this country, they hit you, too. In his case, they killed him.

Kamil drew a picture of what he wanted other people to understand about his life. He explained to me: “This is my heart that has been stabbed with a dagger. The Home Office did to me this, I am bleeding and no one can stop it.” This was four years before Kamil was killed.

Bristol has a fantastic network of people offering space in their homes to destitute asylum seekers. But the network found it hard to provide the support Kamil needed. He spoke of his sense of isolation when sharing a house: “I can’t see anybody to talk to … There are some people, they don’t have my illnesses, they don’t have my problems.” Volunteers lobbied to get Kamil a care assessment from social services. He was assessed as having significant and ongoing physical, psychological and mental health needs. He was provided with space in a hostel for people with mental health issues. It felt like some small success. Some of his basic needs were being recognised.

But soon after he moved in, another resident, Jeffrey Barry, took a dislike to Kamil and beat him up. He racially abused him and told support services of his plan to kill Kamil.

Kamil had what his friend described as a naive trust in the police. Each time he was abused or attacked, he went to the police. He believed the authorities in Britain would protect him.

On 9 June 2016 Kamil received a letter from social services informing him that his support was to end. He would have to move out. This would have meant being street homeless with no financial support, knowing the impact this would have had on his mental and physical health. With help from friends, mental health support and his solicitor, Kamil fought to stay. But he also needed the threats and abuse to stop.

On 7 July 2016, about an hour before killing Kamil, Jeffrey Barry rang a mental health helpline saying he was out of control and would hurt someone. He had informed many people, many times, who was to be top of his list. The police were called but did not come. Kamil received no protection.

Last year, the UN accused the government of “systematic” violations of disabled people’s rights. In August this year, a UN representative described the situation as a “human catastrophe”. Kamil’s death is one horrific part of this bigger picture.

In 1999, under paragraph 115 of the Immigration and Asylum Act, asylum seekers lost the right to any acknowledgment of the extra costs associated with disability in the UK. Asylum seekers also became subject to forced dispersal to areas of low-cost accommodation around the country. This was more than a decade before similar measures were introduced in the Welfare Reform Act 2012, including the bedroom tax, and the reduction in benefits for disabled citizens. In 2009, when the UK government ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People, it added a reservation, excluding the Convention’s article on Liberty of Movement from the enshrined obligations. This would facilitate the exclusion of disabled people at the border if the government of the day so chose.

More recently, in apparent contrast, the UK Visas and Immigration department set up a ‘Safeguarding Hub’. This aim is to ensure that ‘vulnerable’ or ‘at-risk’ individuals are offered protection within the asylum system. Leaving aside for the moment the obvious failure to implement this aim, I suggest that the labelling of people as ‘vulnerable’ takes us back to before the disability rights movement began. Kamil died not because of his personal vulnerabilities, but because the system gave him no protection from his killer. His death highlights the need for systemic change such that he would not have been forced into a vulnerable position.

Had Kamil not been both an asylum seeker and disabled, perhaps he would still be alive. Perhaps the police would have taken his needs more seriously. Perhaps social services would have offered him alternative accommodation. Perhaps he would have had the option of moving out.

This is all speculation, but the one thing that is clear is that Kamil was failed. Never has the term “failed asylum seeker” been more appropriate. He was failed, terribly. By the system. He came to the UK to seek safety, but found the opposite. He escaped violence in Iraq and was brutally killed in a hostel set up to provide protection. Here. In Britain.

• Rebecca Yeo is a PhD student at Bath University