SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Forced deportation of asylum seekers from the United Kingdom has been annulled, the Federation of Iraqi Refugees said on Tuesday.
“The order to forcibly deport asylum seekers has been annulled,” the Iraqi federation said, citing British refugee adviser Awan Abdulla as saying.
The federation further said no planes would be allowed to transport asylum seekers forcibly deported from the UK to Iraq without the federal government’s decision.
The federation cited an asylum seeker who is in custody in London as saying that the Home office had informed him that the decision to forcibly deport him had been revoked.
More than 60 asylum seekers, most of whom are from the Kurdistan Region, are in custody in the UK, according to the Iraqi federation. They were scheduled to be deported to Erbil on Tuesday.
On May 26, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) denied rumors that it had reached an agreement with the British government over the forced deportation of Kurdish asylum seekers.
