A NEW organisation has been set up in Blackburn with Darwen to work with refugees and asylum seekers.

The borough’s City of Sanctuary group, launched earlier this month, already has more than 100 people from various groups taking part in its activities.

Co-ordinator Aftab Mughal said: “We want to build on Blackburn with Darwen’s reputation as a welcoming place for those fleeing violence and persecution.”

He said the new organisation showed that claims in January’s BBC Panorama documentary White Fright: Divided Britain that the borough was ethnically split were untrue.

For almost 20 years Blackburn and Darwen have hosted up to 350 refugees and asylum seekers under a Home Office dispersal programme for those fleeing persecution to the UK.

The new group, launched at a special reception address by borough Mayor Cllr Colin Rigby, is the latest branch of the UK-wide City of Sanctuary ‘national movement of welcoming refugees’.

Mr Mughal, a leader of the Blackburn YMCA’s New Beginnings project, which works with asylum seekers in the borough, said: “Already we have more than 100 people from various charities and organisations working with the new group.

“It is going very well. There are many things we can help refugees with especially as for a lot of them English is not their first language. City of Sanctuary is about making them feel safe and at home here.

“This proves the borough is a welcoming place for refugees and that the BBC documentary claiming the borough is divided is wrong.”

Blackburn with Darwen Council deputy leader Phil Riley said: “This is a splendid initiative.

“It demonstrates that Blackburn with Darwen is, and for a long time has been, a welcoming place for refugees and asylum seekers.”

Among the group working with the City of Sanctuary branch are Action Factory Community Arts, Blackburn YMCA, Amnesty International (Blackburn with Darwen Group), the ARC Project, ASMAF, and Darwen Asylum Refugee Enterprise based at the town Central United Reformed Church.

John East, DARE co-ordinator and a trustee of Blackburn YMCA, said: “I am delighted that the borough now has a City of Sanctuary group.

“It shows how Blackburn with Darwen is welcoming to those feeling persecution, violence and torture and has been for 20 years

“This initiative gives the lie to Panorama’s claims that we are an ethnically and culturally divided borough.”