More than a dozen Syrian asylum-seekers are to be deported to Rwanda by the UK government this month, a British refugee charity said.
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) said that 15 Syrians have been served with removal notices by the Home Office and would be deported under what it described as a “despicable” plan.
Zoe Gardner, a policy and advocacy adviser at the JCWI, called the plans “cruel and a complete abdication of responsibility”.
“These are the people our government wants to send to a dictatorship in one of the poorest countries in the world. A country these refugees have no connection to, no future in,” she wrote on Twitter.
Home Secretary Priti Patel confirmed that the first flight to East Africa under the offshore processing plans will leave the UK on June 14.
Ms Gardner said that one of the charity’s clients was a Syrian man who arrived in the UK by boat because there were no other “safe route to escape Syria”.
“No visa to apply for or queue you can join to reach the UK. He was targeted by the regime and had to run. He has two sisters living here. Where would you go? What welcome would you hope for?” she wrote.
“The government is carrying out its despicable plan to deport refugees to Rwanda. This scheme is an abomination. Racist, barbaric and morally bankrupt,” the refugee charity's Twitter account added.
Sceptics suggested the timing of the government’s announcement was made to deflect attention from the Partygate scandal that is threatening Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s leadership.
On Tuesday, a deportation flight with about 30 Iraqi Kurds who had been living in Britain for decades on board was halted at the last minute after challenges by lawyers and human rights campaigners.
Home Office officials said those on the June flight list are in detention and are set to go to Rwanda “where they will be able to rebuild their lives in safety”.
Ms Patel said she would “not be deterred” from her “strategy to overhaul the broken asylum system” as the government braced itself for legal challenges to the deportations.
Campaigners are concerned that asylum-seekers subjected to the Rwanda removal policy may not have access to legal advice and mental health support.
Yvette Cooper, Labour shadow home secretary, called the Rwanda scheme a way of “chasing headlines regardless of reality”.
“This is a completely unworkable, extortionately expensive, and deeply un-British policy. There is no proper process for identifying people who have been trafficked or tortured,” she said.
The Home Office has said that those deported to Rwanda would get a “generous support package” that includes up to “five years of training, accommodation, and healthcare on arrival”.
