Calais migrants say: We’ll stay put... we’re not going to Rwanda!

ON a dusty road on the industrial outskirts of calais, a small group of Iranian migrants in tents are taking in news of the Uk’s Rwanda asylum plan.

The dozen men, mostly in their 20s and 30s, have spent months waiting for an opportunity to make the perilous crossing of the channel to reach Britain. Some have already tried and failed.

But since the announcement that migrants who succeed will be met with a one-way ticket to Rwanda, they have changed their minds.

Standing beside a row of shabby small shelters amid a hum from massive industrial units and passing lorries, Hamid karimi, 34, sums it up: ‘I’m not going to the Uk if afterwards I’m sent to Rwanda. I’m staying here. I’m not going to Rwanda.’

Others in the group nod in agreement. Referring to the Prime Minister, one jokes: ‘Johnson go to Rwanda!’

Boris Johnson has said the scheme drawn up by Home Secretary Priti Patel will serve as a ‘very considerable deterrent’ – and that appears to be the case here.

Announcing the Rwanda scheme on April 14, the PM said tens of thousands of asylum seekers who arrive in the Uk by ‘irregular routes’, such as small boats or hiding in lorries, will be sent 4,000 miles to the African nation.

Arrivals will be processed and screened in the Uk, with those deemed suitable flown to Rwanda on planes chartered by the Government. They will be then given accommodation and the opportunity to apply for asylum there – but cannot return to the Uk. The change in tack from Hamid and his fellow Iranians is one adopted by many migrants in northern France since the announcement.

A few miles away, near another camp in calais, a group of mostly Sudanese men told of their fear of being beaten or even killed if they are sent to Rwanda.

‘We came from Africa – we don’t want to go back,’ said Mohammed Noor, 34. ‘Nobody wants to go to Rwanda. If I go, I will finish my life. In Rwanda I won’t get a good life. I have come here for europe and for the Uk.’

Mohammed said Rwanda’s bloody history was a major deterrent. In the genocide of 1994, 800,000 people – mainly members of the minority Tutsi group – were killed in just three months.

‘They have genocide, they have war,’ said Mohammed. ‘If you go to Rwanda, they will beat you and they will kill you maybe.

‘I will wait to see if Parliament changes. Maybe the Government will change.’

Some migrants believe the scheme is merely a political ploy by the Uk which will fail to materialise. The Government wants the first flights to leave next month. channel crossings have continued in their hundreds since the announcement, but early indications show that numbers are in decline. On April 14, 562 crossed in small boats. On Tuesday, the figure was 263.

It is too early to say if the apparent decline is a result of the plan, but ministers will certainly hope so. They say the policy is intended to ‘take back control of illegal immigration’ and undermine people traffickers who profit from it. critics claim it is a breach of international law and human rights.

‘Nobody wants to go there’

everyONe from Gary Lineker to the Archbishop of Canterbury has attacked Priti Patel’s plans to resettle failed asylum seekers in rwanda.

yet, as we reveal today, it’s already making migrants at Calais think twice about making the perilous journey on flimsy boats.

The scheme must still get through a number of legal hoops.

And it won’t be cheap to implement. But if it saves lives and helps smash the evil traffickers profiteering from the desperate, won’t it be worth every penny?