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Hundreds of migrants have been moved from an overcrowded immigration centre in Kent – with the government accused of presiding over a “shambles”.

The Manston processing centre is designed to hold up to 1,600 people for no more than 24 hours, but as of Monday, there were 4,000 on the site.

Some migrants are threatening to self-harm and go on hunger strike, with unrest “spreading across the camp”, Sky News has been told.

It comes as figures suggest 1,322 asylum-seeking children have been housed in hotels rather than long-term homes over a three-month period – and, as of 19 October, 222 of them are missing.

The Local Government Association (LGA) is calling for an urgent plan to tackle the “crisis”, so the children can be moved into permanent placements quicker.

Almost 40,000 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats so far this year.

Last night, immigration minister Robert Jenrick said “good progress” has been made in alleviating overcrowding at Manston, with the number of migrants there “falling substantially”.

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Mr Jenrick expects more people to be moved today, and said: “Unless we receive an unexpectedly high number of migrants in small boats in the coming days, numbers will fall significantly this week.

“It’s imperative that the site returns to a sustainable operating model and we are doing everything we can to ensure that happens swiftly.”

Local Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale has also said that “several hundred” have been relocated, but it is unclear where they have been taken.

On Monday, Sir Roger had warned the situation at Manston was a “breach of humane conditions” – and given there have been reported outbreaks of MRSA and diphtheria, he described overcrowding as “wholly unacceptable”.

The British Red Cross also said: “It’s clear that immediate action is required to ensure that the men, women and children who have just made a dangerous and potentially traumatic journey have their basic needs met in a safe environment.

“No one should experience overcrowded accommodation that puts them at risk of disease and potentially being detained unlawfully.”

Manston migrant processing centre in Thanet, Kent, is seen from the air

‘Unrest is spreading across the camp’

In an exclusive interview, Sky News has been told that some migrants inside Manston are threatening to self-harm and go on hunger strike in protest at being detained.

The Prison Officers’ Association represents 170 people who are working at the site – and assistant general secretary Andy Baxter, who saw conditions for himself when he recently visited the centre, has warned “unrest is spreading across the camp”.

Mr Baxter told Sky’s Lisa Holland: “Our members are facing threats from people constantly saying ‘What’s happening to me? Where am I going? When will I be getting moved on?’

“When our members can’t give them an answer, people start making threats to have sit-down protests, threats to go on hunger strike and people making threats of self-harm.”

He said some POA members have concerns for their safety, and there have been a few incidents of people making homemade “weapons” from things like wooden cutlery and toothbrushes.

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Migrants ‘threatening self-harm’

Warning that there could eventually be a “serious breakdown in public order” at Manston, Mr Baxter added: “So far there are no incidences of those weapons being used on anyone – it seems to be something that people want to carry – but our members are really concerned.”

Some of the people being held at Manston have been there for weeks as there is no alternate accommodation to move them to, and they cannot leave until they have somewhere to go.

It is difficult to speak to people inside because they have had their phones taken off them.

But the charity Humans for Rights Network shared accounts with Sky News from two asylum seekers who were in Manston about a month ago. They are both 16-year-old teenagers from Sudan, and are now in hotels in London.

One said: “I spent 17 days in Manston. I slept on a blanket and was covered with another blanket which was not enough for me and I was feeling cold. There were daily fights between people during my stay.”

The other said: “There were no beds in the tents, not even chairs. We used to put the food boxes on the floor and slept on them.

“I spent all the time in the clothes they gave me when I arrived and they were wet with rainwater. A skin disease spread during my stay and I was afraid of getting infected with it.”

We can’t independently verify these accounts, but Mr Baxter described seeing “large marquees with quite poor facilities” – and a lack of beds and furniture.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The number of people arriving in the UK who seek asylum and require accommodation has reached record levels and continues to put our asylum system under incredible pressure.

“Manston remains resourced and equipped to process migrants securely and we will provide alternative accommodation as soon as possible.”

The spokesperson added: “We urge anyone who is thinking about leaving a safe country and risk their lives at the hands of vile people smugglers to seriously reconsider. Despite what they have been told, they will not be allowed to start a new life here.”

Councils struggling to cope

Away from Manston, councils have “significant concerns” about unaccompanied children being sent to live in hotels by the Home Office – with local authorities often not informed ahead of time.

More than 1,300 child migrants were placed in hotels between July and September, with the average length of time spent in a hotel 16 days.

As of 19 October, 222 of these young people are missing.

Almost all are boys and many are 16 or 17. Thirty-nine of them have been missing for at least 100 days and 17 were lost within a day of the Home Office becoming responsible for them.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has said that, when a child goes missing from hotel accommodation, the Home Office works “very closely with local authorities and the police to operate a robust missing persons protocol”.

The Local Government Association is urging the government to work more closely with councils – and help them support children coming to the UK without parents or guardians.

It has set out a four-point plan for how government should improve the current system, including establishing a pathfinder foster carer recruitment campaign specifically for unaccompanied minors, and calling on Homes for Ukraine sponsors to consider providing accommodation for older children.

Louise Gittens, chair of the LGA’s children and young people board, said: “Councils don’t want to see any child placed in a hotel by government, which is completely unsuitable for unaccompanied children.

“It is deeply concerning and unreasonable that these hotels, which were introduced as a short-term emergency measure, remain in use, especially as the number of children going missing from them continues to grow.

“We urgently need a plan to tackle this crisis and ensure children can move quickly to their permanent placements.”

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Braverman and migrant row explained

Braverman criticised

Yesterday, peers in the Lords criticised Ms Braverman – with Labour’s home affairs spokesperson Lord Coaker describing the situation regarding asylum processing as a “shambles” with “terrible consequences for people”.

His Liberal Democrat counterpart, Lord Paddick, attacked the “woeful track record” in processing claims – as well as the home secretary’s “reckless rhetoric”.

But former Brexit secretary Lord Frost defended Ms Braverman, and said: “We have seen over the last couple of days what seems to me to be an almost obsessional pursuit of the home secretary who is dealing with a series of extremely difficult substantive problems.

“A pursuit on the basis of leaks, anonymous briefings, the usual oversensitivity about words.”

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Renewable energy produces more electricity than coal for the first time, experts say

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Renewable energy produces more electricity than coal for the first time, experts say

For the first time in history, renewable energy has produced more of the world’s electricity than coal, according to a new analysis of global energy trends.

In the first half of 2025, solar and wind energy outstripped growth in global electricity demand and led to a small but significant reduction in the use of fossil fuels compared to the year before, clean energy analysts Ember said.

The finding coincides with the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasting a doubling of global clean energy capacity by 2030.

“We are seeing the first signs of a crucial turning point,” said Ember’s electricity analyst, Malgorzata Wiatros-Motyka.

Deployment of renewable generation, particularly in developing economies, has outpaced new fossil fuel power in recent years.

Little Cheyne Court Wind Farm on the Romney Marsh in Kent. File pic: PA
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Little Cheyne Court Wind Farm on the Romney Marsh in Kent. File pic: PA

Maintenance work on a solar farm in eastern China. File pic: FeatureChina/AP
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Maintenance work on a solar farm in eastern China. File pic: FeatureChina/AP

‘The beginning of a shift’

But many experts warned the increase would not be enough to meet rising global demand for electricity, let alone start to reduce emissions and therefore combat global warming.

Ms Watros-Motyka said: “Solar and wind are now growing fast enough to not only meet the world’s growing appetite for electricity – this marks the beginning of a shift where clean power is keeping pace with demand growth.”

The IEA analysis of renewable energy trends predicts global renewable generation will increase by 4,600 gigawatts by 2030 – a growth equivalent, it says, to the current total power generation of China, the EU, and Japan combined.

IEA executive director Fatih Birol said solar photovoltaic, or solar PV (the technology that converts sunlight into electricity using solar panels made up of photovoltaic cells), “is on course to account for some 80% of the increase in the world’s renewable capacity over the next five years”.

“In addition to growth in established markets, solar is set to surge in economies such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and several Southeast Asian countries,” he added.

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Mad science or radical idea to slow climate change?

The trend is not even, however.

Ember’s analysis found renewable generation outstripped coal in both China and India in the first half of 2025, but in the US and Europe, the reverse was true.

Rocketing electricity demand in the US, driven in large part by electricity for AI and datacentres, saw more reliance on coal and gas generation, despite an increase in renewable electricity capacity.

In the EU, lower output from wind farms and hydroelectric plants led to a higher reliance on fossil fuels.

The reports highlight the challenges of switching economies from fossil fuel-powered electricity grids to those dominated by renewables.

They also don’t rule out future shifts in fossil fuel emissions if demand accelerates or supply chains for renewables are constrained in some countries.

The growth of offshore wind for example, is now forecast to slow due to policy changes in places like the US and materials costs in Europe, according to the IEA.

Read more on Sky News:
Alarm over Tory climate plans
Changes to eco rules for new homes
Can Arctic be refreezed?

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Tories vow to scrap climate law

However, the growth in green power also reflects potential opportunities missed by countries like the US, and right-wing politicians in Europe, who reject renewable electricity on ideological or cost grounds.

In nearly all markets, the agency concludes, solar panels are the cheapest and easiest-to-install form of generation.

US President Donald Trump, who recently told the United Nations climate change was the “greatest con job”, might want to study the numbers, too.

His administration has committed to increasing US oil and gas exports and abandoning support for renewable energy.

According to a separate analysis by Ember, the US sold around $80bn (£59bn) in oil and gas in July, while China exported $120bn (£89bn)-worth of green technology in the same month.

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Netanyahu is learning limits of what can be achieved by military power alone

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Netanyahu is learning limits of what can be achieved by military power alone

It is hard to remember the Middle East before October 7 2023, so much has changed in the wake of its horrendous events.

Before the attack, the region’s geopolitical tectonic plates were grinding, but an uneasy status quo held sway and observed certain rules.

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But that day unleashed an earthquake, changing everything.

In two years of turmoil since, the region’s rulebook has been torn to pieces.

The first rule: Israel would manage the threat from Hamas but not try to eradicate it. Israel’s policy of dividing and ruling the Palestinians’ rival factions had come back to bite them.

Instead, Israelis insisted in one voice after October 7 no more “mowing the grass”, their euphemism for cutting Hamas down to size, from time to time. This time, the job must be finished.

That would change the way Israelis waged their war in Gaza. Not least in the way they would tolerate many more civilians dying, in the name of defeating their enemy. If the target’s rank was high enough, the deaths of scores of civilians – women and children – would be acceptable.

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Two years on from 7 October attacks

The outcome has been an unprecedentedly high civilian death toll.

Israel’s war on Hamas has now killed more than 67,000 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians or combatants.

Its impact will be felt for generations to come, not least no doubt on the potential radicalisation of those who have survived.

And it has seen Israel, a nation conceived in the wake of one genocide, accused of perpetrating another. That stain, justified or not, has implications for Israel’s psyche and own sense of identity.

Israel denies all accusations of genocide. But it has potentially grave repercussions for its future.

Abroad, popular support for Israel has fallen most of all among the young and most of all where it needs it most: America. The rule that supporting Israel will always be a vote-winner in the US is also now in question.

But the rules have changed Israel’s borders and in the way it has chosen to wield its increasingly hegemonic military power even more dramatically.

Read more from Sky News:
Peace plan – what you need to know
Trump urges peace talks ‘move fast’

Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel is now finding itself increasingly isolated. Pic: AP
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Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel is now finding itself increasingly isolated. Pic: AP

Israel’s leaders found a new boldness in the wake of October 7, at the same time as technological and tactical advances gave them the tools to pursue it.

The pager operation against Hezbollah that crippled the Shiite Lebanese militia was planned long before October 7. But it reached operational utility just as Israel found the risk appetite to implement it.

It was decisive in the events that led to the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Since 2006 and Israel’s last war with Hezbollah, the rule held that neither would risk provoking another. It would be too devastating for both.

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The pager attack disabled Hezbollah’s ability to launch tens of thousands of missiles, after months of attritive attacks on them by Israel.

For as long as Hezbollah held that arsenal of missiles, it was assumed Israel would not risk attacking Iran. With that neutralised, Israel could now take on its ultimate enemies there.

The rules were rewritten in the skies over Iran and Israel in their first direct attacks on each other in April and October last year. Then, in June this year, Israel unleashed a devastating 12-day war on Iran, joined in its closing stages by US warplanes too.

But after reaching that zenith in military supremacy, Israel has since overreached. A failed airstrike on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, provoked the anger of allies, most crucially Donald Trump.

Netanyahu has provoked Trump in the past with Israel's military offensives. Pic: Reuters
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Netanyahu has provoked Trump in the past with Israel’s military offensives. Pic: Reuters

In the prelude to this anniversary, Benjamin Netanyahu is learning the limits of what can be achieved by military power alone. Having invested more in military action than constructive diplomacy, Netanyahu’s Israel is now increasingly isolated.

Israel’s leader finds himself hemmed in by a US president being leant on by Arab allies. Trump will not tolerate Israel annexing the West Bank and wants a deal that offers a “credible pathway” to a future Palestinian state.

Netanyahu needs to show he can still bring the remaining hostages home, that fighting the war this long was justified, and he has a plan for what happens the day after.

And if the war is being drawn to a close, with American mediation and the support of Arab partners and allies, they all have responsibilities too.

To find a better new status quo with far better rules, to make sure the carnage and regionwide turmoil of the last two years can be brought to a close and never repeated.

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October 7: Two lives torn apart by day that changed everything

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October 7: Two lives torn apart by day that changed everything

For a long time, Rita Lifshitz would come back to Kibbutz Nir Oz every week, sit outside the house of her father-in-law, Oded, and have a drink.

To raise a glass to the people who had gone. To remember October 7.

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“We used to drink a beer every weekend,” she tells me, her eyes trained on the small little table on the patio where they would sit and talk.

“So for 500 days I came to have a beer outside the table. Here I put the beer for grandpa and I put the beer for me. He was my psychologist for 500 days.

“He was only a few kilometres from me and I just imagine him coming in with a big smile.”

Rita Lifshitz tells Sky News her kibbutz 'wakes up every morning to the 7th of October'
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Rita Lifshitz tells Sky News her kibbutz ‘wakes up every morning to the 7th of October’

Around her, the charred remains of violence, death, and devastation. The burnt-out wreckage of happy lives that came to a horrific end.

I spent two hours walking around this kibbutz with Rita. She showed me the places where friends had been murdered, where loved ones had been taken hostage, and where her best friend had been shot and then dragged away, his blood still smeared over the floor of his home.

“It is a trauma,” she says. “And all of us, the whole kibbutz, wakes up every morning to the 7th of October.”

On the morning of 7 October 2023, this small kibbutz, which sits within sight of the border with Gaza, was overrun by Hamas fighters.

In total, 117 people, more than a quarter of those who were there that morning, were either killed or kidnapped. No other kibbutz suffered such a high proportion of casualties.

Among them, Oded Lifshitz and his wife, Yocheved. Both were in their 80s, and both had volunteered for charities promoting peaceful relations with Gazans. Both were taken hostage on October 7.

Oded Lifshitz, who died in Hamas captivity
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Oded Lifshitz, who died in Hamas captivity

Oded used to drive sick children from Gaza and take them to Israeli hospitals for treatment. Now we stand in the charred remains of their home.

Yocheved was eventually released after 16 days as a hostage, but Oded died in captivity. His body was not returned until earlier this year, but he had probably died a year earlier.

And now we stand in the charred remains of their house.

To Rita, this place is both a touchstone to a happier time and also a stark warning of inhumanity. A panel of metal is all that is left of the piano that Oded loved to play.

The couple’s crockery is still scattered in a corner, thrown there when their furniture was upended.

“They started firing rockets at us at 6.30 in the morning, but we didn’t worry because they have been firing rockets at us for 20 years,” says Rita.

“There was one day we had 800 rockets land round here, so we are not scared of rockets. We didn’t get any information about what was happening, no warning.

“The first we knew was when two people working in the fields saw Hamas, and they were the first ones to be killed.”

It is believed that around 540 fighters attacked the kibbutz – far more than Nir Oz’s entire population. It was a massacre. Only six houses escaped attack.

The nursery school workshops, gardens – all of them shot, burnt, destroyed.

We move to the far end of the home, picking our way through the debris that still litters the floor.

There is a steel door, the entrance to the bomb shelter where Oded and Yocheved often slept and where they tried to hide.

Their beds are still here, blackened and burnt. In the door are bullet holes – Oded had done his best to hold the door shut, but he was shot in the hand and the attackers stormed in.

‘The death road’

The last time Yocheved saw her husband was him lying on the floor, bleeding. As she was taken away, rolled into a carpet, she didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

To walk around this kibbutz is to witness the scars of trauma again and again. A black flag outside a house means someone died there.

A yellow flag designates that an occupant was taken hostage. There is a road that Rita calls “the death road,” where almost every house has at least one flag outside.

Read more about the war in Gaza:
Trump’s Gaza peace plan explained
Sky News reports from inside Gaza City

We go into the home of one friend, who was murdered in the living room. Her clothes are still there, her handbag hangs on the bedroom door. It feels so intrusive to be here, but Rita insists the world needs to see.

We see Natan, a long-term resident who is now 88 years old. His home was one of only six to escape being ransacked, because the Hamas attackers couldn’t work out how to get through the front door.

He says he came back as soon as he could, despite the destruction around him, insistent he is not fearful.

“This is my home,” he says emphatically.

Natan says his home was one of only six to escape being ransacked
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Natan says his home was one of only six to escape being ransacked

Rita takes me to the home of her best friend, Itzhak Elgarat. Unlike most of the homes, his was not set ablaze, so it still looks now as it did then.

A bottle of olive oil is on the side, cooking ingredients laid out, a couple of bottles of wine set on the table.

But also bullet holes strewn across the walls, in the furniture. Possessions thrown around and, horrendously, Itzhak’s blood still smeared across the walls, the floor, and the door where he was shot.

The other side

I climb a set of stairs, which used to belong to a house that has now been demolished.

You can see Gaza in the near distance, across a few fields.

And over there, not so long ago, Sabah might have been looking back.

Just as Rita’s life has been torn apart by the war, so has Sabah’s. For Rita, it is the mental torment of what happened on October 7, the struggle to process and to move on.

Sabah says she has been displaced 13 times due to Israeli strikes since 7 October
Image:
Sabah says she has been displaced 13 times due to Israeli strikes since 7 October


For Sabah, it is something more fundamental. A Gazan displaced from Khan Younis, she once lived in a grand home near the border, only a couple of miles from Kibbutz Nir Oz, as the crow flies.

It was a home for multiple generations, the pride of her life, “a place meant to give us stability and peace”.

Since then, she has been displaced 13 times, and she worries that her home has been reduced to rubble.

“Personally, I long to go back to even the ruins of my house, to sit among the rubble, simply to be there,” she says.

“Even that would be better than this life. At least then I might find a little peace.”

The last time she saw her home, it had been hit by an explosion. Some of it was destroyed, but other parts were habitable.

But since then, Sabah has been told that it has been damaged by both fire and military action – news that devastated her.

A building in Gaza in ruins after an Israeli strike
Image:
A building in Gaza in ruins after an Israeli strike

She says: “Someone told me ‘your house was the very first thing they burned. The fire raged inside for three days. And after they burned it, they brought in an armoured vehicle and blew it up’.

“Just imagine losing your home. When they told me what happened to mine, I spent nearly ten days doing nothing but crying.

“It feels like your soul is torn away. Your spirit leaves you.”

'We are an oppressed people,' Sabah tells Sky News
Image:
‘We are an oppressed people,’ Sabah tells Sky News

She insists that this story is not just about October 7, not just about Hamas, but about decades of struggle that led to this point, about Palestinian anger and accusations that they are oppressed by Israel.

“This goes back generations. What happened on October 7 was not the beginning of the story. I remember my father, my grandfather, and their fathers before them telling what they had endured. We have lived our entire lives under this weight.

“This land is ours, our homeland. We did not buy it. It has been passed down from our ancestors, generation to generation. That is why it is not easy for me, or for any of us, to surrender it.

“The truth is that we are exhausted. We are an oppressed people. October 7 was just one day, but for us, it has felt like living through hundreds of October 7th’s, over and over again.”

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