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15/6/2022–|Last update: 6/15/202210:10 AM (Mecca)
A flight that was supposed to take refugees from Britain to Rwanda was canceled Tuesday, as part of a plan approved by the British government to reduce the flow of irregular migrants there, after last-minute judicial reviews.
Government sources told The Associated Press that due to last-minute interventions by the European Court of Human Rights, all the migrants were removed from the plane that was scheduled to take them to Rwanda, and therefore there will be no flight in this regard tonight.
In a tweet on Twitter, the organization Care for Calais, which specializes in the defense of asylum seekers, said that “the last flight ticket has been canceled. No one is leaving for Rwanda,” while the British news agency BA Media quoted government sources as saying. In London, the flight was canceled due to last-minute decisions by the European Court of Human Rights.
Al-Jazeera correspondent reported that the deportation of asylum seekers from Britain by air to Rwanda had been suspended, after a decision by the European Court of Human Rights.
Earlier on Monday, the British High Court supported the government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, while the United Nations considered the move a catastrophic precedent.
Both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court have dismissed last-minute petitions against the British government’s controversial plan to deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda on the eve of the first planned flights.
“This appeal has been dismissed”, which was brought against Johnson’s Conservative government project aimed at halting illegal crossings of the Channel Channel, a judge at the London Court of Appeal said.
Despite criticism from human rights advocates, the United Nations, the Anglican Church and even the British royal family, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government appears determined to prevent irregular crossings of the Channel, which has been on the rise despite repeated promises since Brexit.
The British Home Office said it was disappointed that the legal challenge meant that today’s flight to Rwanda would not leave the country, noting that many of the refugees removed from this flight would be placed on the next flight.
“Our legal team reviews every decision made regarding this flight, and begins preparing for the next one,” she added.
For her part, the British Minister of Labor said that the government will change any law that hinders the transfer of refugees, stressing that the next plane to Rwanda will take off according to plan.
The Rwandan government also said that canceling the first flight of asylum seekers from Britain would not deter it from accepting refugees.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, denounced the UK’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, saying it was “all wrong” and set a “disastrous” precedent. “We believe it is all wrong… for many reasons,” he told reporters.
Since the beginning of this year, more than 10,000 irregular migrants have crossed the English Channel to reach the British coast on small boats, a significant increase compared to previous years, which constituted a record.