About 44 Nigerians and Ghanaians were deported to their home country on a single flight on Friday, the Home Office said.
The Home Office said the Nigerian and Ghanaian deportations were part of a “significant increase” in migrant enforcement and returns, according to Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
Since Labor came to power in July, 3,600 people have been repatriated to various countries, with around 200 people boarding planes to Brazil and 46 to Vietnam and East Timor.
Regular deportation flights also operate to Albania, Lithuania and Romania.
Deportation flights to Nigeria and Ghana are relatively rare, with just four recorded since 2020, according to data released under freedom of information rules.
The number of passengers on previous flights was much lower: 6, 7, 16 and 21, respectively. More than twice that many passengers were removed from one flight on Friday.
The deportation comes amid news that asylum seekers who arrived in Diego Garcia before a deal between the UK and Mauritius to return the Chagos Islands would be sent to St Helena, a British colony in the Atlantic Ocean. It was done. The most remote place on earth.
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One of the four Nigerians interviewed by the Guardian while being held at Brookhouse Immigration and Deportation Center near Gatwick before being deported has attempted suicide.
His cellmate, who witnessed the attempt, said he was “extremely traumatized” by what he saw.
The second man said: “I have been in the UK as an asylum seeker for 15 years. I have no criminal record but the Home Office rejected my claim.”
A third man said he was forced to be exploited as a child and his body bore scars from torture.
“I told the Home Office that I was a victim of human trafficking. They rejected my claim.”
A fourth person said he desperately tried to find a lawyer to challenge his exclusion order, but was unable to find one.
Fiza Qureshi, chief executive of the Migrant Rights Network, which contacted some of the people on the Nigeria/Ghana deportation plane before leaving the UK, said: Speed, secrecy, and lack of access to legal assistance. One detainee we spoke to before being put on a plane said, “The Home Office is playing politics with people’s lives on the line.” We have done nothing wrong other than asking for help. ”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We have already begun to significantly increase our immigration enforcement and return operations to remove people who have no right to be in the UK and ensure that the rules are respected and enforced, with the first two “More than 3,600 people were returned within a month.” of the new government. ”
