As organisations working to address global poverty, we condemn Phillip Hammond’s warped claims about African migrants (Report, 10 August). It is not “marauding” African migrants, but the UK and other wealthy nations that are threatening living standards and causing poverty for people in Africa and across the world. Sub-Saharan Africa loses $192bn to the rest of the world each year. In return it receives just $30bn back in aid. Whether it is our network of tax havens that allows the theft of billions from countries in Africa each year, the costs we save by recruiting health workers from the world’s poorest countries, the aid we give as loans which contribute to the looming debt crisis, or our carbon emissions which force African countries to pay out billions to adapt to the climate change we cause, it is the UK and our wealthy allies, not African migrants, doing the marauding.

The UN is clear that most migrants attempting to reach the EU are fleeing persecution or conflict. These people have the right to protection under international law. The British government claims it wants to stop the minority who are fleeing poverty making dangerous journeys to the UK. The solution does not lie in increased security in Calais. It is in ending our own contributions to global poverty.

Martin Drewry, Director, Health Poverty Action, Nick Dearden, Director, Global Justice Now, Tony Dykes, Director, Actsa (Action for Southern Africa), Tim Jones, Senior policy officer, Jubilee Debt Campaign, John Christensen, Director, Tax Justice Network, Bert Schouwenburg, International Officer, GMB, Samantha Maher, Policy director, Labour Behind the Label, David Hughes, Director corporate services, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Leigh Daynes, Executive director, Doctors of the World UK

• I have been involved in theatre for 25 years and know the importance of narrative. And what a story unfolds for us in 19 Princelet Street (Letters, 8 August), in London, with the Hughes and their lovely rose garden, freed African slaves finding shelter there, Irish people escaping the famine, Jews fleeing the pogroms in eastern Europe and Bengalis adding to the picture. What you have is a house that contains within its walls a history of immigration into the UK that people can grasp easily. To understand its impact you would have to stand alongside a volunteer, such as myself, and see visitors’ jaws drop open as they come into the house and see a beautiful restored Victorian synagogue. To create a new museum would be a contrivance, whereas Princelet Street has grown organically in London’s East End through the ages and is already an outstanding museum of immigration.

Monty Holender

London