Afghan removals! - is it just more Home Office spin?

Posted Monday 28th April 2003

Failed Afghan asylum seekers will be forcibly removed from the UK for the first time in eight years by the Home Office. About 30 Afghans are expected to board a flight to their home country today.

The Home Office stopped sending refugees back to Afghanistan in 1995 because of instability there, and failed Afghan asylum seekers were instead given exceptional leave to remain in the UK.

NCADC believes that the announcement of the forced removal of failed Afghan asylum seekers by the Home Office is purely for political reasons. The Home Office don't normally give public warning of deportations. With local elections in mind, the government are being tough on asylum.

Although the gender of those being removed today was not mentioned, NCADC would be extremely concerned by any attempt to remove single women or women with children whose father had been killed or the whereabouts of the father is not known.

The situation has been deteriorating in Afghanistan for quite some time and it doesn't look like the Kabul Government has any remit outside of Kabul itself. During the war with Iraq the USA started a new series of bombing raids on Afghanistan. On Wednesday 9th April four men and seven women were killed when a USA bomb hit their house on the outskirts of Shkin, Paktika province, in eastern Afghanistan, adding to the mounting civilian death toll caused by the US-led coalition bombing over the last year.

According to NGO's working in and observing the situation in Afghanistan, there is no stability outside of the capital Kabul.

Less than a fortnight ago UN refugee agency chief Ruud Lubbers today cautioned that refugee returns could be threatened by rising insecurity in parts of Afghanistan. Displaced Afghans in Afghanistan are still fleeing harassment and insecurity in the north - from Faryab, Jawzjan and Badghis provinces. Many end up in the south, joining an estimated 350,000 internally displaced persons, most of them living in six settlements in Kandahar and Helmand provinces.

'Refugee Action Committee' Canberra Australia, on Monday 28th April 2003, said "the Afghan government has refused to accept the forcible return of asylum seekers. Certainly the Australian government has been unable to forcibly return asylum seekers. Instead it has relied on pressuring them to "voluntarily" return, by offering $2000 each (about £700) and telling them they will never be released out of detention. Many have refused despite the pressure and the government here has been stuck with keeping them in detention."

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office Country Advice states: "We strongly advise against all non-essential travel to Kabul and against all travel to other parts of Afghanistan. If your travel to Kabul is essential, we strongly recommend seeking local advice before undertaking any travel. The security situation remains serious . . . . "

The Refugee Council said the Home Office should give the voluntary returns programme more time, saying Afghanistan was not yet a safe country. Margaret Lally, acting chief executive, said: "It is far too early for forced returns to Afghanistan when there is very credible evidence that the country is not yet safe and there is a climate of impunity and people's protection cannot be guaranteed."

Alan Gibson, a spokesman for the 'Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers,' said the deportations were a "scandal" and an "absolute outrage". He said: "Afghanistan is still in complete and utter chaos and reports have made it absolutely clear that the way the British and the Americans have left the place is to warring factions. "The only safe place in Afghanistan is in the middle of Kabul - there is murder on the streets of Afghanistan and these people are going back to the persecution that they no doubt fled in the first place."