UK Offers Asylum Seekers Relocation To Rwanda Or War Zones They Left Behind - Reports

Muhammad Irfan Published June 06, 2022 | 05:10 PM

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th June, 2022) The new UK deportation program leaves asylum seekers with no other choice but to relocate either to Rwanda or the conflict zones they escaped from as the Home Office denies them the right to appeal rejected asylum claims, the Guardian reported on Monday.

Last week, the UK Home Office sent out first letters notifying illegal migrants with rejected asylum claims that they would be deported to Rwanda under the new Migration and Economic Development Partnership between the two countries. Home Secretary Priti Patel said the first deportation plane would depart on June 14, but details of the scheme remain largely unclear.

"You have the option to leave the UK voluntarily. However, should you be removed it will be to Rwanda," the Home Office letter read, as quoted in the report.

"There is no right of appeal against the decision to treat your asylum claim as inadmissible," it added.

The first group of those facing the 'offshoring' includes a disproportionate number of Sudanese people, about 100, even though the Sudanese are only the seventh-largest migrant group to arrive in the UK between January and March of this year, outpaced by the Afghan and Iranian refugees, according to the report.

The group of would-be detainees also include Afghans, Eritreans, Syrians, Iranians and Iraqis, it said.

The UK and Rwanda signed a partnership deal in mid-April, instantly drawing criticism from both human rights organizations and UK politicians, who have doubted it would help curb the illegal migrant flow through the English Channel and argued that the new scheme is a way to shield Prime Minister Boris Johnson from mounting criticism.

Johnson's Conservative Party will hold a confidence vote later on Monday as the prime minister faces growing criticism for the social gatherings in his office during lockdowns. He promised that the new deportation scheme would remove tens of thousands of migrants who came to the UK illegally. Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab later said the number would rather be closer to hundreds.