Cambridge Migrant Solidarity met yesterday outside the Guildhall in Market Square to commemorate the one year anniversary of the death of Eliud Nyenze, a Kenyan asylum seeker who died in Oakington Immigration Removal Centre, which is situated just outside of Cambridge.

A crowd of around 30 congregated at 12.30pm, bearing cards and flowers for Nyenze’s family, and leaflets containing information about the tragic circumstances of his death.

Nyenze died from what was officially diagnosed as arrhythmia of the heart at Oakington, which closed in November 2010. On the night of his death, it is reported that he repeatedly asked staff for painkillers and other medication, which he was denied. He asked for an ambulance, which took over an hour to arrive. By the time paramedics reached the scene, he was dead.

The verdict of the inquest found that he died from natural causes, exonerating Primecare, the privately contracted company responsible for the healthcare of immigration detainees, and G4S, the security firm which ran the centre. However, Nyenze’s family maintain that there is more to the story.

Their view is supported by Dr Frank Arnold from Medical Justice, an organisation which provides medical support and medical evidence to Asylum detainees. He has suggested that the Home Office may have failed to examine the full range of possibilities in their medical report.

Nyenze’s family believe that key information was kept from the inquest. They are still waiting for the report into Nyenze’s death by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman. Though the last year has undoubtedly been a traumatic one for the Nyenze Family, Eliud’s brother wrote to Cambridge Migrant Solidarity thanking them for the “great visions and determination you guys have. We sometimes think we are on our own but you guys always prove us wrong.”

G4S run many of the prisons and detention centres in the UK. In the past, G4S have also been responsible for forcibly returning failed asylum seekers to their countries of origin. However, since the death of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan man who died during an attempted deportation last year, G4S have lost this contract for deportations.

Mubenga's death is believed to be related to the restraint technique used by the G4S officers who accompanied him on the flight. They may face charges of manslaughter, though this is yet to be determined.

G4S will also be responsible for security at the 2012 London Olympics. Cambridge Migrant Solidarity consider this be to extremely worrying in the face of widespread concerns as to the neglect and undue use of violence suffered by detainees supposedly under the protection of G4S. Brook House, a detention centre managed by G4S near Gatwick, was last year described by the Chief Inspector of Prisons as ‘fundamentally unsafe.’