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Lost and helpless in a foreign country, Abu Omar* was grateful to be given a place to stay in a hotel after arriving in the UK last year.

After fleeing a refugee camp in Jordan, he and his young family were offered a room in a London hotel, which had been designated for asylum seekers by the goverment.

Abu and his wife Sarah* live there with their two young children, packed together into a tired and bleak single room. Living day to day inside the four walls, they survive on a diet of bread, cheese and fruit. They said they decided to stop eating the hotel food after their children, a daughter aged 4 and a son aged 6, both contracted food poisoning from uncooked chicken served there.

Abu had little with him when he arrived in Britain and, after his pair of trousers got torn, he was left with only one outfit - the tracksuit he had arrived in.

Once a week, Sarah would hand-wash his tracksuit in the sink of their hotel room. With nothing else to wear, he would remain there for a day or two in his underwear until his clothes had dried.

open image in gallery St George’s flag hung outside of a Home Office hotel ( Getty Images )

Abu’s basic existence is a far cry from the life of “luxury” for migrants that the government described this week as ministers dicussed a plan to move migrants to military barracks. Instead, campaigners say migrants can be squeezed 11 to a room, in rooms devoid of even the most basic of facilities and food so bad it has been seen to cause diabetes.

‘They were cleaning the bathroom with the pillow case we slept