Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) building | File photo
The United Kingdom (UK) says it deported 43 failed asylum seekers and foreign offenders to Nigeria and Ghana.
A joint statement released on Friday by the Home Office and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) did not state the exact date of the deportations.
“Those removed had no right to be in the UK and included 15 failed asylum seekers and 11 foreign national offenders who had served their sentences. Seven people returned voluntarily,” the statement noted.
However, the statement also did not clarify whether all the deportees were citizens of Nigeria and Ghana or how many were sent to each country.
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Since taking over last year, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has overseen two charter flights carrying 87 people to Nigeria and Ghana.
Last October, 44 Nigerian and Ghanaian asylum seekers were deported. It was the highest number of deportees in a single flight from the country.
The turn to Nigeria and Ghana follows a failed UK-Rwanda migration deal, signed in 2022, which aimed to send some asylum seekers arriving illegally in the UK to the East African country for processing and resettlement.
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The plan faced legal challenges and was ruled unlawful by the UK supreme court in 2023.
Nigeria then reportedly signed a deportation agreement with the UK, which would see the arrival of illegal immigrants in the country.
After the latest deportation flight, Angela Eagle, UK’s minister for border security and asylum, thanked the governments of Ghana and Nigeria for facilitating the operation.
The statement said the exercise demonstrated the strength of cooperation between the UK, Nigeria, and Ghana on this “critical issue”.
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The UK government also noted that over 24,000 people have been returned, an 11 percent increase over the same period 12 months prior.
