Afghan Refugees Arrive In UK While Others Face Deportation

Yesterday, at around 3 p.m., the first flight that carried refugees from Afghanistan left Pakistan for the UK.

Aboard the flight, which arrived at Stansted Airport in London, were 132 Afghan nationals who had been relocated from Pakistan.

Over the next six weeks, the government announced that around 3,000 Afghan refugees will be flown into England and will be provided with hotel accommodation.

This news comes after the Home Office announced that housing migrants in the UK cost taxpayers £8 million each day.

This week, the government also revealed that it had ordered thousands of Afghan families, who had arrived in the UK under the Afghan Citizens' Resettlement Scheme, to leave their accommodation.

The forced move was met with much controversy after Labour Shadow Minister Luke Pollard called the act "shameful" and recognised that it is "nothing to smile about".

The migrants that have been flown into Stansted airport, have been held in Pakistan under UK authority and the Ministry of Defence's flagship resettlement scheme since last year.

The group were relocated to London after two refugees, who were eligible for the relocation, filed a case in a London court that forced the government to expedite the repatriation.

The court session, which became a controversial issue for the Conservative authorities, resulted in a British High Commission delegation discussing the special flight measures for the transport of the group, with the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority.

A government official confirmed that all of the Afghan refugees under the repatriation will be relocated to the UK by mid-December.

There will be one or two flights each week from Islamabad, Pakistan, and the group will be greeted by special security arrangements being made at the London airport – according to a senior government official.

However, one Afghan refugee, who fled Kabul after the Taliban resurfaced in 2021, told reporters that he now faces being sent back to the jihadist leaders after the UK admitted that he had been housed in Pakistan in error.

Mohammed Zaker Nasery has spent 19 months living in a UK-funded hotel in Pakistan, waiting for the approval that would see him relocated to England.

Nasery had a UK visa approved but was given 14 days' notice to leave the accommodation after being told by the Ministry of Defence that he was not eligible for the resettlement scheme.

The father of four, who worked as a contractor on a Foreign Office (FCDO) project between 2019 and 2021 now faces abandonment in Pakistan and the threat of returning to Afghanistan.

More than 30 Afghan families have written letters to the British High Commission to contest his eviction from the relocation project.

The government have "cocked it up", said Juliette Seibold, who worked for IPE Global, a company contracted by the FCDO in Pakistan.

"They invited him to Pakistan, then they invited his family to Pakistan. They led him down this road of believing that he had a chance and they put him up for months in Islamabad at an eye-watering cost of money. At the end of all this process, they're booting him out. It's just not fair," she said.

This month, the Pakistani authorities ordered all undocumented asylum seekers from Afghanistan to leave the country by November this year, if not, they will face forced deportation in December.

The order comes after tensions on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been increased by military attacks in regions close to Kabul and Islamabad.

Pakistan, home to an estimated 3.7 million Afghan asylum seekers, blamed the rockets on Afghanistan-based operatives but the accusation was denied by the Taliban regime.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti, warned the undocumented persons that "If they do not go... then all the law enforcement agencies in the provinces or federal government will be utilised to deport them".