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Bristol MP Carla Denyer has slammed the Home Office for ‘abandoning’ Palestinian students who have been awarded scholarship places at the University of Bristol but are trapped in Gaza despite the government’s promise to help them reach the UK.
In early September, then-foreign secretary David Lammy promised that all students in Gaza with scholarships for UK universities would receive help in evacuating in order to take up their places.
However, Carla’s office has been supporting a number of students who meet that criteria, but whom the Home Office have blocked from travelling to the UK.
One such student, known as ‘B’, has secured a scholarship to study at the University of Bristol, and had her course and accommodation deposits waived by the university so there are no fees to pay.
However, she has not been able to travel to the UK to take up her place because the Visa Application Centre in Gaza, where visa applicants are required to provide biometric data, has been closed since October 2023.
It is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to reach any Visa Application Centre outside Gaza without permission to leave – leaving ‘B’ and many others trapped.
According to the advocate organisation supporting her application, ‘B’ faces an imminent risk to her life in Gaza. Her family’s home was destroyed, leaving them without shelter, potable water, or food security.
Carla has repeatedly asked the Home Office to defer ‘B’’s biometric data submission until she is in the UK, as her sponsors have provided ample documentation to prove her identity, and her travel to the UK would by necessity be under close supervision of UK authorities. However, the Home Office refused, claiming that ‘B’ did not have “an urgent need to travel to the UK” and suggesting that she delay her travel or “study at another location”.
In addition to calling on the Home Office to take action to ensure the safe passage of students like ‘B’, Carla is also engaging with the University of Bristol to ask that the student registration deadline, initially extended from the 6th October to the 10th October, is extended further if needed so that it does not prevent Palestinian students from taking up their place while they experience delays with their visa applications.
Along with a number of MPs from across Parliament, Carla wrote to the Prime Minister in August calling on him to take action to help Palestinian students. However, while some have been evacuated, many remain trapped in Gaza.
Carla Denyer said:
“It has been heartbreaking and head-banging in equal measure seeing the Home Office refuse to facilitate something that the government itself promised to provide: secure safe passage for a student who has been offered a funded place to study at a UK university.
“One has to ask whether this is simply incompetence and indifference on the part of the Home Office, or whether the government has said one thing to the public and another to its officials. Either way it’s an appalling betrayal of many desperate young people.
“‘B’ is a young person whose home has been destroyed and whose family has been displaced. All of Gaza’s universities and colleges have been damaged or destroyed in the Israeli government’s onslaught. Her best chance for a safe future and an education lies in coming to study in Bristol.
“And yet despite government promises to help every Palestinian student with a scholarship evacuate to the UK, the Home Office has abandoned ‘B’ and many others like her to their fate – refusing to lift a finger to enable them to leave an active warzone to pursue their education. It’s absolutely shameful.
“‘B’ is just one of many students in this situation who I am trying to support to come to Bristol. The Home Office must urgently defer biometrics requirements for Palestinian students with university places in the UK and find a way to get them here to take up their places.”