UK cancels flight set to deport Kurdish asylum seekers

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The British government has canceled a scheduled flight that was set to deport around 30 Kurdish asylum seekers to the Kurdistan Region, an Iraqi MP told Rudaw on Monday, adding that they will now be given the chance to settle their cases in court in the United Kingdom.

A flight arranged by the British Home Office was set to land in the Kurdistan Region’s capital of Erbil on Tuesday evening to deport up to 30 people who had been seeking asylum in the UK. The flight was canceled a day prior to its scheduled timing, after drawing criticism from Kurdish and British communities alike.

UK media outlets reported the news on Tuesday, however, Muthanna Amin, a member of the Iraqi parliament's foreign relations committee, informed Rudaw of the development on Monday.

“Today, a phone call was made to the office of Iraq’s foreign ministry, informing them [the office] that the forced deportation of the asylum seekers has been suspended,” Amin told Rudaw’s Soran Hussein. “Today, the British government has decided to not send them back forcefully, and give them the opportunity to settle their cases in the court,” he added.

Rudaw English has reached out to the Home Office for further clarification as to why the scheduled flight was canceled, but they were not immediately available for comment.

The asylum seekers, some of whom had been living in the UK for decades, were detained in advance of their scheduled flights. The Guardian stated that some of the detainees went on hunger strike inside the detention centers as they objected to the decision from the Home Office.

Campaigns by Kurdish and British communities surfaced on social media soon after the flight was announced, calling on the Home Office to stop the mass deportation, and claiming that the lives of these people would be in danger back in the Region.

“We make no apology for removing foreign criminals and those with no right to remain in the UK. This is what the public rightly expects and why we regularly operate flights to different countries,” The Guardian cited a Home Office spokesperson as saying.

A boat carrying 33 migrants from different countries, including Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, capsized in the English Channel in November, leading to the drowning of 27 people.

The following month, hundreds of people gathered at Erbil International Airport to receive the bodies of 16 of the drowned, as they were returned to the Region for burial.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a new proposal last month to potentially send tens of thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda for their asylum applications to be processed, drawing condemnation from figures including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the High Commissioner for the United Nations Refugee Agency.  

Thousands of people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region continue to attempt to leave the country for Europe in search of jobs and opportunities they feel they cannot access at home where unemployment levels are high and political tensions, corruption, and instability have left them with little hope for their future.

Kurdish migrants in France told Rudaw last month that the Rwanda plan would not deter them from attempting to make the journey to the UK.