Three asylum seekers jump to their death from a tower block in Glasgow;  a mother, a father and their stepson, originally from Russia, afraid that they were about to be deported.

Neighbours (above) hold a candlelit vigil for them after the tragedy.

The tower block is in the Red Road district of Glasgow and used to house refugees dispersed from all over the UK, many of them undocumented and fearful of deportation. Some have been arrested. Spent time in prison or detention centres that are like prisons. The can’t work, they have no real income. They mainly have little or no access to study or education. And they can be moved on to another city at any time with less than a week’s notice, unable to take more than a suitcase of possessions with them.

This Christmas, because of the snow, holidaymakers at Heathrow Airport had to wait 24 or even 48 hours to get away on their winter holidays. Some of them were going skiing. Some were flying away to the sun. Instead they found themselves having to sleep on airport benches. Some of them had to lie on the floor with only those silver anti-hyperthermia sheets for covering.

And some of the more unhappy said: We felt like refugees. Their words even made a headline in a national newspaper….

They felt like refugees. Maybe. There may have been a few differences though. For example, they hadn’t been driven half-way across Europe in the back of a lorry. Nor had they come  crammed with 200 other people in a leaking boat from Africa or Indonesia that threatened to sink at any moment. They hadn’t been totally dependent on people-smugglers, crooks and gangsters. They hadn’t been raped, beaten and persecuted in the country they were leaving. And they weren’t likely to be arrested, imprisoned and sent home once they’d got to their destination.

Apart from that, it must have been JUST LIKE being refugees.