Far-right vigilantes are drawing up databases of asylum seekers living in houses of multiple occupation (HMOs), fuelling fears of violence across the country after properties were attacked in Thetford.
Norfolk Constabulary is investigating how houses that were targeted over several nights of disorder last week were identified, after residents had to be evacuated when mobs smashed windows and attempted to force their way inside.
A Refugee Council official said the events amounted to a “pogrom” and could be repeated as HMOs become an increasing focus for anti-migrant activists.
A man in his sixties has been arrested over the sharing of addresses in Thetford, but on social media calls are circulating for databases to be drawn up of asylum accommodation nationwide.
‘First the traitors, then the invaders’
One account with more than 20,000 followers on X has been issuing guides on using AI, council records and Freedom of Information requests to find the locations of HMOs housing asylum seekers.
“We are mapping the migrant housing network across the whole UK,” the account posted on Tuesday. “First the traitors, then the invaders.”
Asylum hotels have been the target of several riots and numerous far-right protests over the past three years.
But the Home Office is now moving increasing numbers of people awaiting decisions on their claims into HMOs.
By the end of March, 20,900 asylum seekers remained in hotels – down from 32,300 a year earlier. In the same period, the number living in HMOs and other “dispersal accommodation” rose from 66,700 to 68,700.
The houses are often rental properties sourced by private contractors in residential areas. Unlike hotels, they do not routinely have security guards or CCTV.
A house which was set on fire in Belfast, as anti-migrant disorder flared in June (Photo: PA)Several properties that were locally alleged to be HMOs housing asylum seekers were set on fire in Belfast in June, amid disorder sparked by a knife attack.
A year earlier, houses were burned in the Northern Irish town of Ballymena during riots targeting the Roma community following the reported rape of a 14-year-old girl by three Romanian teenagers.
‘New escalation of anti-migrant violence’
Ciarán O’Connor, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue who has been tracking the violence, said the targeting of homes in Ballymena and Belfast were “unprecedented” at the time and “represented a new escalation of anti-migrant harassment and violence”.
“Thetford is the latest iteration we’ve seen of justifications for protests being based upon the belief that asylum seekers are inherently sexually violent, or just generally violent,” he told The i Paper.
“These claims are reaching a wide group of people. We are long past the the time when there was a clear boundary between formal, explicit far-right groups online.
“Nowadays it’s pieces of content, it’s clips, it’s fragments which travel across social media with ease.”
Footage taken during the disorder in Thetford showed asylum seekers being called “paedos” as they were being evacuated by police officers.
Police in Clover Way, Thetford, during disorder targeting asylum housing last week (Photo: Scott Hussey/SWNS)Debates on local Facebook groups have centered on unevidenced assertions that the asylum seekers were a threat to women and girls.
In one post on 6 August, a woman living near one of the vandalised houses addressed rioters and their supporters, writing: “You claim to be protesting for ‘women and children’s safety’ yet what you did made me and my child feel the most unsafe we have ever felt. Shame on you!”
But several people responding to the woman’s post still supported the disorder. “Why are you trying to justify allowing illegal men being housed opposite you?” read one of several similar comments.
Rise in protests
More than 20 people have so far been arrested in connection with the disorder, Norfolk Constabulary said, for offences including inciting racial hatred, assaulting an emergency worker, conspiring to commit aggravated burglary and racially aggravated public order.
The police said that disorder began on 4 August, when people attempted to break into a house, smashed windows and broke fences.
The following night, a large group of people “tried to gain access to a residential property” after an anti-immigration protest outside the local police station, and attacked officers as they intervened.
The events followed a series of protests outside a nearby disused RAF base that the Government is assessing for potential conversion into asylum accommodation.
Supporters of the protests outside former RAF Barnham, pictured, and the disorder in nearby Thetford, claim to be acting on safety concerns (Photo: Martin Pope/Getty)Home Office figures show that as of March, only 40 asylum seekers lived in dispersal accommodation within the Breckland Council district that includes Thetford.
Imran Hussain, director of external affairs at the Refugee Council, said that if the Government did not strongly condemn the violence a “worrying signal” would be sent.
‘Asylum seekers are most exposed in HMOs’
“You can want low immigration, you can be really concerned about the numbers of small boat arrivals, but when there’s mobs on the street attacking people then that’s an attack on British values, that’s mob rule, that’s a pogrom,” he told The i Paper.
“Where’s the moral clarity in condemning that? I don’t think we’ve seen enough of that across the political parties.”
Hussain said threats towards asylum seekers were intensifying, and that charities supporting them were also being targeted and having to increase security measures as a result.
“In the last three summers we have just seen things in this country which we wouldn’t have imagined – we’ve seen refugee hotels being attacked and set on fire,” he added.
“It seems to be that now as hotel numbers are reducing, people are getting pointed to HMOs. That is problematic because people are more exposed in those places.”
One major Home Office accommodation contractor said that security arrangements for HMOs were reviewed in conjunction with the Home Office and that physical security was provided by external contractors if required.
But another firm said that while it conducted welfare visits and would escalate any safety concerns to the police, security guards and CCTV were not provided for dispersed accommodation.
‘People escaping war are being attacked in their own homes’
Ben Whitham, the policy and engagement manager at the Refugee Action charity, said: “It is frankly terrifying that people who have come here to escape war, persecution, torture and genocide are being attacked in their homes.
“These attacks are on the rise because MPs and other political leaders fan the flames of hatred by using dehumanising and demonising language about people seeking safety.”
The head of UK Counter Terrorism Policing said last month that “anti-immigration sentiment” was a key driver of a rising threat from the extreme right wing.
“Polarised views in society are having a direct impact on that increased threat,” he told a press conference. “Hateful views are being challenged less and less, and they are taking over and dominating conversations.”
He pointed to two recent terror attacks – the attempted beheading of an Iranian asylum seeker in Bristol last August and an attack on a police station in Wales in January 2025 – that involved anti-immigration motives.
A hotel previously used to house asylum seekers was the site of a neo-Nazi terror attack in August 2024, where an Eritrean man was stabbed but survived, and asylum seekers and small boat migrants have been the target of several other terror attacks and foiled plots.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Any threats of violence or intimidation directed at individuals, or their homes, are completely unacceptable.
“We are working closely with the police to provide appropriate security advice to our providers, and established protocols remain in place to ensure any safety concerns are dealt with swiftly and effectively.”
O’Connor said because the violence in Thetford, Belfast and Ballymena ultimately drove migrants out of their homes, there is a risk that the tactics will be seen as “success stories” and more widely adopted.
“There will never be any form of acceptable accommodation for asylum seekers among these groups,” he added.
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