The mob was growing, encircling the hotel near the northern English town of Rotherham where asylum seekers were living.

Abdulmoiz, an asylum seeker in his 20s from Sudan, said he watched from an upstairs window with other men trapped inside. All they could do was pray and wait, he said, as the men outside began attacking the building, throwing objects, breaking windows and chanting, “Get them out.” Some of the attackers tried to set fire to the building.

“People were in a panic,” said Abdulmoiz, who asked to be identified only by his first name to avoid jeopardizing his asylum claim, and who spoke just days after the attack through an interpreter. “If the people outside didn’t kill us,” he feared, “the smoke would.”

The assault two weekends ago came on one of the last big days of riots fueled by far-right agitators and an online disinformation campaign after a deadly knife attack on a children’s dance class in northwestern England. Much of the disinformation after that attack falsely claimed that the suspect — a teenager born in Britain — was an asylum seeker or that he had come to England illegally.

The police eventually managed to push back the Rotherham rioters, but the residents, including Abdulmoiz, were still terrified. He has since moved to another hotel, in Birmingham, but he said the fear has barely abated.