The Times - UK (2022-05-28)

22 Saturday May 28 2022 | the times

News

The proportion of migrants crossing
the Channel in small boats who are
from Afghanistan has increased five-
fold this year, fuelling accusations that
ministers are not doing enough to help
those fleeing the Taliban.
Of the 4,540 people who made the
journey in the first three months of the
year 1,094, or one in four, were from
Afghanistan, Home Office figures
show. Last year 1,323 Afghans crossed
the Channel — one in twenty crossings.
Afghan was the most common
nationality to cross between January
and March at 24 per cent, followed by
Iranian at 16 per cent and Iraqi at 15 per
cent. The latter nationalities have
previously outnumbered Afghans.
In total 9,327 migrants have crossed
the Channel this year, a figure not
reached last year until August.
Immigration experts said the rise in
Afghan arrivals was directly linked to
the Taliban’s return to power last
August. The UK evacuated 15,000
Afghans who had worked with or for
the British during its 20-year military
operation, under the Arap scheme.
Shortly after the collapse of the
Afghan government, ministers prom-
ised to set up a scheme for up to 20,000
more Afghans. However, it was not
launched until January and its numbers
have been inflated by 7,000 Afghans
who had transferred under the Arap
scheme, leaving fewer places for those
who fear Taliban reprisal. It means the
Home Office has already met its target
of settling 5,000 Afghans in Arap’s first
year, and it stands accused of manipu-
lating the figures and not fulfilling its
commitments to refugees.

Ministers have struggled to find per-

manent homes for Afghans because the

average family has six or seven people.

Twelve thousand refugees are living in

hotels, at a cost of £1.2 million a day.

Dr Peter William Walsh, senior re-

searcher at Oxford University’s Migra-

tion Observatory, said: “The arrival of

Afghans indicates that many more wish

to find protection here than are able to.”

Enver Solomon, chief executive of

the Refugee Council, said: “This

increase [in crossings] is the inevitable

consequence of the restrictive nature of

the Afghanistan resettlement schemes,

for which the vast majority of Afghans

are simply ineligible.

“The government must honour the

promises they made to the people of

Afghanistan by immediately ensuring

the most vulnerable people are able to

access a safe route to the UK, so they

are not forced to risk their lives in order

to find safety here.”

The rise has also prompted fears that

Afghan refugees will be deported to

Rwanda under Priti Patel’s policy for

illegal arrivals. More than 50 migrants

have been notified of the government’s

intention to send them there. Legal

challenges have delayed the first flight.

Marley Morris, of the Institute for

Public Policy Research think tank, said

deportation to Rwanda would be an

“unimaginably awful outcome for

people who have already faced such

great hardship”. She added: “Contrary

to the government’s claims, there are

few safe routes to make it to the UK.”

The Home Office data also showed

that the average small boat was

carrying 32 people, up from 28 last year.

One in six migrants were children,

mostly boys, and half of those were un-

accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Three in four asylum decisions were

approvals in the year to March, a

32-year high that undermines claims by

ministers that the vast majority of

arrivals are economic migrants.

A Home Office spokesman said:

“The UK has made one of the largest

commitments to support Afghan re-

fugees of any country, and will resettle

up to 20,000 Afghan women, children

and others at risk. The rise in dangerous

Channel crossings is unacceptable.”

Family told to

remove bench

for Marine

Council officials in West Yorkshire
have ordered a memorial bench to a
Royal Marine to be removed from a
moor because his family had not
obtained permission for it.
Corporal Tony Sutcliffe took his own
life in 2019, aged 44. He left a wife, Kate,
and daughter Lyra, then seven.
His family had the bench designed in
his memory and placed it on Baildon
Moor, where his ashes were scattered
last year. Council bosses in Bradford
are now demanding that the bench be
removed. Nearly 4,000 people have
signed an online petition, calling for it
to stay.
Sutcliffe’s brother, David, 43, said: “I
put it up there for my brother. He was in
the military for 12 years, and he made
me promise that if anything ever hap-
pened to him I’d scatter his ashes there
and put something there to remember
him by. I asked for permission from the
council, but never really got anywhere,
so we took it into our own hands.”
The soldier’s widow said: “Tony had
been suffering with PTSD for many
years... he had so much built-up anger
from the tours he did and suffered
severe survivor’s guilt after a friend and
colleague died in action while he was
away in Dubai.
“The PTSD caused terrible night
terrors. In the end it all got too much
and on April 12, 2019 he took his own
life at home.”
Bradford council said it “very much
supported remembrance”, but added:
“We have received several complaints
about the bench as it never received
Endurance test Storms have forced the withdrawal of 150 of the 270 runners in an eight-day race from Fort William to Cape Wrath, northwest Scotland. It ends tomorrow approval before being put there.”

CAPE WRATH ULTRA/NO LIMITS PHOTOGRAPHY

Surge in arrivals of Afghan migrants

Matt Dathan Home Affairs Editor Small boat arrivals

By nationality

Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Iran

Iraq

Syria

Eritrea

2020

2021

2022

Jan to Mar

Source: Home Office

494

1,094

1,094

722

681

601

376

1,323

2022 Jan to Mar

Case study

S

hamali Jabarkhel

is a 17-year-old

Afghan who fled

the mountainous

southeastern

region of Nangar Khel

after the Taliban’s

takeover of his country

last August (Matt Dathan

writes).

He paid £8,500 to

people smugglers for his

journey to the Kent coast,

where he arrived after

crossing the Channel in a

small boat.

Jabarkhel paid

smugglers £1,000 for his

initial journey when he

fled last year, which took

him through Iran and

then on to Turkey,

travelling by car,

motorcycle and some of it

on foot.

He paid smugglers a

further £2,800 to get to

Greece by boat, and then

another £3,000 to travel

to Serbia, then Hungary,

Austria, Switzerland and

finally France by car. He

gave a man who runs a

convenience store in

Paris £1,500, who passed

on the money to the

smugglers once Jabarkhel

arrived in the UK and

gave him the go ahead to

forward the cash.

He says he will have to

work hard to repay the

debt that he has accrued

from borrowing off

friends and family to

make the 5,000-mile

journey. He will have to

find a living in the black

market, however, because

asylum seekers are

barred from working

while they await the

outcome of their

application for asylum.

Ever since he was born,

he has dreamt of moving

to the UK. “England is

the place of life,” he told

The Times after we visited

one of the makeshift

camps in Dunkirk,

northern France, last

month. “It is my big

dream, for my studies, for

a job, to build a family.”

Was he deterred by the

threat of being sent to

Rwanda? “No, I will still

go,” he said last month.

“When they say they

send people to Rwanda,

that is not human, and

the UK has a record on

human rights that we

believe the UK will not

break, so we will never go

to Rwanda. Rwanda does

not have human rights.”

After arriving in Dover

this month, Jabarkhel

said: “I am so happy to

reach my dream.”

ABDUL SABOOR FOR THE TIMES

Shamali Jabarkhel paid people-smugglers £8,500 for his trip