The Home Office reported that a record number of Nigerians and Ghanaians were deported to their home countries on a single flight on Friday, October 18.
According to the Guardian UK, the Home Office stated the deportations from Nigeria and Ghana were part of a “major surge” in immigration enforcement and returns.
Since Labour took office in July, 3,600 people have been returned to various countries, including around 200 to Brazil and 46 on an aircraft to Vietnam and Timor-Leste.
There are also regular deportation flights to Albania, Lithuania, and Romania.
Deportation flights to Nigeria and Ghana are uncommon, with only four recorded since 2020, according to data published under freedom of information laws.
The previous flights had significantly fewer individuals on board, with six, seven, sixteen, and twenty-one, respectively. Friday’s flight had more than double that many removed in a single flight.
The deportation occurred as news broke that any asylum seekers who arrive in Diego Garcia before a treaty between the UK and Mauritius to return the Chagos Islands is finalized will be sent to Saint Helena, a British territory in the Atlantic Ocean described as one of the most remote places on Earth.
One of four Nigerians who talked with the Guardian while being imprisoned at Brook House, an immigration detention station near Gatwick, attempted suicide before being deported.
His cellmate, who watched the attempt, described himself as “very traumatised” by what he had witnessed.
A second man said: “I’ve been in the UK for 15 years as an asylum seeker. I have no criminal record but the Home Office has refused my claim.”
Fizza Qureshi, the CEO of Migrants’ Rights Network, who was in contact with some of the people on the Nigeria/Ghana deportation flight before they left the UK, said: “We are extremely shocked at the cruelty of these deportations, especially with the speed, secrecy and the lack of access to legal support. In the words of one detainee we spoke to before he was put on the flight: ‘The Home Office is playing politics with people’s lives. We have not done anything wrong other than cry for help.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We have already begun delivering a major surge in immigration enforcement and returns activity to remove people with no right to be in the UK and ensure the rules are respected and enforced, with over 3,600 returned in the first two months of the new government.”
A Gentle Reminder: Every obstacle is a stepping stone, every morning; a chance to go again, and those little steps take you closer to your dream.
Nnamdi Okoli
