Unwanted, Unnoticed: an audit of 160 asylum and immigration-related deaths in Europe • Sergio Camilo Becerra González (26), 21/07/2014 A Colombian undocumented migrant, González died in a prison in Helsinki after being taken into police custody for not having a legal permit to stay in the country. González had gone to Finland to study acrobatics, and had been accepted by a college after passing an entrance exam. He had twice won the Colombian cheerleader championship and was once crowned the Latin American champion. Police say that he committed suicide, but his family believe that his death was a result of police racism.20 FRANCE SNAPSHOT: A large proportion of asylum seekers in France, including families with children, are forced to sleep rough, according to a recent Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner report, as the country’s asylum reception facilities are so inadequate that they accommodate only one-third of those needing housing. Conditions in the country’s administrative detention centres, where nearly 25,000 were detained in 2011, have been criticised as poor, cramped and inadequate, and police have a reputation for brutality and racism.21 • Mahamadou Maréga (38), 30/11/2011 An undocumented migrant from Mali, Maréga threatened his landlord with a hammer and died handcuffed and shackled in a lift in Colombes, Haut-Seine, after between ten and seventeen police officers used batons, tear gas and up to sixteen taser charges in a spiral of violence to restrain him. Blood was found in his lungs in the autopsy, but pathologists differed, some saying he died from respiratory failure, others from latent sickle-cell anaemia fatally activated by the tasers. Interior minister Brice Hortefeux described Maréga as a ‘maniac’. An investigation into police action found no case to answer.22 • Alta Ming (34), 04/01/2011 A Mongolian undocumented refugee and mother of two, Alta Ming died in hospital, ill and exhausted after moving between homeless hostels and the streets, going into labour prematurely with her third child. With her husband and two children, Ming had been refused asylum in the Netherlands, and the couple remained in a detention centre until November 2010, when she was released, ill, heavily pregnant and without her husband, who remained in detention. Given forty-eight hours to leave the country, she fled to France with the children, but with no legal status, no income, homeless and unable to seek health care. After her death, her children were reported as staying with family friends also living in a precarious situation.23 • Aminullah Mohamadi (17), 11/05/2011 An Afghan asylum seeker, Mohamadi was found hanged in the Parc de la Villette in Paris, a month before his eighteenth birthday. Mohamadi had fled to France in 2009, where he was not believed about his age despite providing a birth certificate, and was ordered to undergo a bone-age test. He fled from a hearing about his case in 2010 as he could not understand the proceedings (there was no provision for interpretation and he could not speak French). His brother said he was very depressed and anxious about turning eighteen and being returned to Afghanistan, where he feared being forced to join the Taliban.24 • Marius B. (45), 13/08/2011 A Roma migrant from Romania, Marius B. was found hanged in his cell in a Nîmes detention centre, where he had been held for fifteen days. The NGO Cimade states that Marius, a father of two, did not know why he was being held in the centre, as he was from a European country. He had sold all his belongings in Romania in order to leave the country, and did not want to be returned there.25 • Six unidentified men (24-36), 28/09/2011 Six Libyan and Tunisian undocumented IRR | European Research Progamme Briefing No. 10 10