Heji is a Kurdish refugee and documentary photographer currently living in Newcastle. He arrived in the UK in 2021 and shortly afterwards was moved to asylum accommodation at Napier Barracks, a former British military site in Folkestone, Kent. Having fallen into disrepair and slated for demolition, Napier has been used by the Home Office since 2020 to house male asylum seekers. It’s been the subject of significant controversy and in 2021, the UK High Court ruled its use unlawful due to inadequate and inhumane living conditions. Campaigners welcomed the news that the barracks would be closed in September 2025, however the government has now further delayed the closure into 2026.
Heji is one of thousands of refugees who have been housed at Napier over the last five years and here reflects on his time at the site, through words and the powerful images he took while living there.
Napier wasn’t a place to live
It was a place to disappear
They took your name and gave you a number
They shut the gate and the world forgot you
Hope shrank to the size of your bed
You didn’t live there You survived it
Time didn’t move
It drowned in grey skies, locked gates, and unanswered questions
Behind those fences, you learned one thing
Your life wasn’t yours
You belonged to the waiting
These photos aren’t art
They’re proof
Proof of what happens when a system decides you’re less than human
They say Napier will close.
But the walls remain
Not on the ground, but inside the people who lived there
In your mind
In your sleep
In your bones
Forever.
