A family of six, including four children under the age of 10, have been stuck in a one-bedroom Brent Council home for nearly two years.

Somali nationals Safiya Nur Mohamed, 24, and her husband, Abdiasis Ahmed, 32, have been forced to live in the damp-ridden, Harley Road property with their small children since April 2016.

The couple have boy and girl twins aged seven-years-old, one girl aged six and a seven-month-old baby girl, who all have to share a cramped bedroom.

According to the young family, they are on Brent Council's housing waiting list and growing increasingly desperate.

Speaking to getwestlondon, Mr Ahmed said: "We have been living here since April 2016 - it's damp cold and small - the children are crowded together in a tiny bedroom."

Mrs Mohamed said: "The children sleep in bunk beds - two sleep in the lower bunk and one in the top.

"I sleep with the baby in a single bed in the same room and my husband sleeps on the sofa in the second room.

Three of the children sleep in bunk beds - two sleep in the lower bunk and one in the top

"We were on the council's waiting list for a new property and were meant to move in in June 2017 but then before we moved they checked the system for our names and said they'd been removed."

Their seven-month-old daughter suffers asthma and eczema made and is badly affected by the damp

According to Mrs Mohamed, who works as a carer, she was granted permanent UK residency soon after she moved here in 2011.

But she said Brent Council had taken her family off the waiting list because neither her husband nor her twins had yet be granted permanent status despite having applied for it in 2016.

There is damp growing at the head of the bed where their six and seven-year-old daughters sleep

The whole family were granted permanent residency by the Home Office last October.

A Brent Council worker came and took photos of their papers in November 2017 but they have still not been told when they will be moved to a new home.

Mrs Mohamed said: "After the council official came and copied all of our papers we were just told to wait - I ring up every week but am told the same thing - that we should wait for the council to contact us.

The room where five of the family sleep is "damp, cold and cramped"

"They've got everything they need from us - all the official papers - how long can it take them?

"The damp in the flat means we've all got bad coughs, my baby has asthma and eczema - our situation is very bad because this house is very small for us.

"Our seven-month-old is now getting to the age when she wants to move around but she can't move - there's not enough space."

Community campaigner Sahel Ali organised a protest against Brent Council's "unjust" housing policy on January 8.

Speaking to getwestlondon, Mr Ali said: "There are many families who are being kept in substandard living conditions by Brent Council and whose stories have been buried.

"The suffering they are experiencing should be exposed."

Brent Council, which has recently launched its own scheme to clamp down on rogue landlords in the borough, has been contacted for comment.

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