Homeless mum ‘turned away’ by council offering to take her newborn into care
A homeless young mum who has just given birth claims she has been refused a home by council officials in London’s East End.
Khadro Diriye, 27, turned up at Tower Hamlets council’s homeless unit in Bethnal Green two days after her baby boy was born at the Royal London Hospital.
The destitute Somali who has been granted legal right to stay in Britain was told her baby can be taken into care.
But she would have to go, according to the East End’s Somali centre.
“Khandro was told she has no connection with East London and should go back to Bradford where she has been staying,” the centre’s integration co-ordinator Safia Jama told the East London Advertiser.
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“They told her the council has a responsibility for the baby under the Child Protection Act because he was born at Whitechapel—but they don’t have responsibility for her and have refused to help.”
Khandro is in temporary shelter at the Shuttleworth hostel in Well Street, South Hackney, while lawyers try sorting out her case.
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She has an elderly disabled uncle and a cousin in Bethnal Green—but both live in overcrowded accommodation and can’t put her up, according to the Somali centre.
“She naturally doesn’t want to be separated from her baby,” Safia added. “She’s desperate for her child and has nowhere to turn.”
Khandro arrived in Britain in October, separated from her estranged husband who is now in Kenya, and was sent by the Home Office to an immigration hostel in Leeds for two weeks before being moved to another in Bradford.
She eventually obtained legal status to remain in the UK, but had to quit the hostel and made her way to East London.
The baby, her first child, was born at the Royal London on May 15.
