London, Europe Brief News – Fifteen Syrian refugees declared hunger strike after receiving removal notice from UK to Rwanda.
The refugees are facing deportation under British Home Secretary Priti Patel’s controversial new deportation scheme.
The first deportation flight to Rwanda is scheduled to leave on 14 June, as “the final administrative step” in its partnership with Rwanda.
The Home Office said that they have started issuing removal direction letters for the people who are being sent to Rwanda.
Earlier this year, the Home Office announced that it planned to send some refugees arriving in the UK to Rwanda whilst their claims were being processed.
The scheme is set to cost £120 million ($150 million) which Britain will pay Rwanda for accommodation, processing and support.
UK Rwanda asylum plan sparked large condemnation from rights groups.
Plans to send some asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda are a breach of international law, the UN’s refugee agency has said.
The UNHCR said attempting to “shift responsibility” for claims of refugee status was “unacceptable”.
Gillian Triggs, an assistant secretary-general at the UNHCR, told BBC Radio 4’s the World At One programme the agency strongly condemned “outsourcing” the responsibility of considering refugee status to another country.
A former president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, she said such policies – as used in Australia – could be effective as a deterrent but there were “much more legally effective ways of achieving the same outcome”.
Australia has used offshore detention centres since 2001, with thousands of asylum seekers being transferred out of the country since then.
It has been frequently criticised by the UN and rights groups over substandard conditions at its centres and its own projections show it will spend $811.8m (£460m) on offshore processing in 2021-22.
Human Rights Watch also said that UK plan to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda is cruelty itself, accusing UK government continues to rip up its duties to asylum seekers.
