Asylum seekers 'forced to live in pigeon farm'

A government-funded group is facing investigation over claims it has forced asylum seekers to live in an illegally converted poultry farm described by a rights group as a "degrading slum unfit for human habitation".

Asylum seekers living in what they liken to a "shanty town'' say they were given a take-it-or-live-on-the-street offer by International Social Service Hong Kong (ISS-HK), which received HK$203 million from the government last year to help house, feed and aid Hong Kong's growing population of dispossessed.

A former pigeon shed has been turned into makeshift rooms, held together by flimsy pieces of wood, metal and breeze blocks. Amid the stench of excrement, the lingering smell of a farm persists. There is no drinking water and only cold showers, some of them outdoors. The rent is HK$1,300 a month per person, of which ISS-HK pays the bulk - HK$1,200; the rest is met by other charitable organisations.

The dire conditions at the site in Hung Shui Kiu, just north of Tuen Mun, which was a pigeon farm until late last year, were highlighted on Friday when one of eight asylum seekers from India and West Africa living there was rushed to hospital after drinking contaminated water. Medical staff had to carry the man to the ambulance because there is no vehicular access.

Growing concerns over bird flu on the mainland have also raised fears that living in a not-long-closed poultry farm could be a public health hazard.

Similar concerns have been expressed about another ISS-HK- funded development near Ping Che in the New Territories, which is still home to dozens of asylum seekers.