I AM so disappointed in the attitude of some of my fellow residents on Hag Fold to the imminent arrival of a handful of asylum seekers.

I do not understand how people can show such a lack of charity to fellow human beings who are in many cases fleeing unimaginable horrors. These people are not illegal immigrants, but political refugees who will have left their homes in fear of their lives. They will not be living in the lap of luxury but will be living in hard-to-let property, in unfamiliar surroundings without family or friends for support, surviving on food vouchers and charity.

Would those people who don't want this generation of political refugees have left the Jews to be slaughtered in Germany or the 'disappeared' to be murdered in Chile and Argentina or the Kosovans to be ethnically cleansed?

I ask them to watch the news on their televisions each night and ask themselves if they can turn their backs on those victims of war or political repression, ignore people who are being tortured and murdered and imprisoned without trial. I know that I cannot and also know that I speak for many of the residents of Hag Fold who will welcome our political refugees - wherever they come from - and try to help them cope with the horrors they have left behind.

JULIE HILLING

Wordsworth Avenue,

Atherton.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.