I’D RATHER DIE THAN BE PUT ON RWANDA PLANE
Anguish of refugee due on first deportation flight
EXCLUSIVE A REFUGEE set to be deported on the first Home Office plane to Rwanda last night warned he would rather take his own life than be put on the flight.
The Syrian man, who cannot be named because of threats, is in a UK detention centre and says he has been suffering anxiety and depression ever since he was told he will be sent to the African nation.
He said: “I prefer to kill myself than be sent to that black hole. All I asked for is a chance for a life.”
The man, who we are calling Amar to protect his identity, fled his country when ordered to do military service for the Syrian regime.
SMUGGLER
He said: “It means killing your own people. I couldn’t do it. I paid a smuggler to get me to Libya.”
Amar said he was sold to a militia group and was tortured before his parents paid for his release. He then fled to the UK, where he has family.
At the detention centre he received a Home Office letter saying he will fly to Rwanda on Tuesday.
Amar said: “All I knew about Rwanda was it is a country in Africa and it is famous for genocide in the 1990s. I feel I will disappear there, so there is no way that I will go.”
Asked what he would say to Home Office officials, he said: “I’d ask them to put themselves in our shoes and think about the manner this has been done and if it is humane.”
Another refugee due on the first plane to Rwanda says he also feels “stressed, scared and suicidal”.
Iranian Ali, who has a wife in Leeds, added: “I’m being treated like a criminal, not a refugee. At 9pm they lock the doors on our rooms and they don’t open again until 8am. Two or three people try to kill themselves each day. They eat shampoo and pills and cut themselves.
“I can’t even allow myself to think about going to Rwanda. Is this really what they’re doing to refugees? Is this what I deserve?”
They spoke out amid fierce criticism of Home Secretary Priti Patel’s policy. It is understood refugees will be taken to the Hope Hostel in Rwandan capital Kigali. Pictures of its neat rooms have been shown in the UK.
But Rwandan opposition politician Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza claimed her government “doesn’t respect human rights” and blasted the UK for passing its responsibility for refugees on to “a nondemocratic country”.
Clare Moseley, of refugee charity Care4Calais, branded the Rwanda plan “brutal” and said exposing refugees to more trauma
was “deeply shocking”.