UK: How deportations are tearing families apart
January 24, 2017
Protesters draw attention to government’s use of ‘inhumane’ and ‘secretive’ charter flights to forcibly deport people.
London, United Kingdom – Iesha fights back tears as she watches the demonstrators walk through Brixton, the multi-ethnic area of southeast London that has been her home since she was 15.
“They took my babies’ dad on one of those flights,” she says.
Her partner, Leon, was deported from the UK to Jamaica in 2016. “This charter thing is wrong. I’m a mother of five kids and my partner has been here 14 years.”
The Brixton march is part of more than two weeks of action against charter flights which forcibly remove migrants from the UK to countries such as Nigeria, Jamaica, Ghana and Pakistan.
Protests are being held between January 9 and 25 in communities and outside embassies across the UK, as well as in Jamaica and Nigeria. Campaigners are also taking aim at the security companies that are providing escort services for these flights.
Between January 9 and 25 protests are being held in communities and outside embassies across the UK [Amy Hall/Al Jazeera]
Between 2001 and 2014 nearly 30,000 people were removed from the UK on charter flights. These can stop off in multiple countries with up to 80 people on board, including failed asylum seekers, people with criminal convictions and people whose visas have expired. Past charter flight destinations have included the Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq.
