Rights groups urge airlines to halt one in, one out' deportation flights

"Campaigners have urged airlines deporting asylum seekers to France as part of the UK's controversial one in, one out scheme to stop facilitating the cruel and forced deportations. Letters have been sent by 28 refugee and human rights NGOs on both sides of the Channel to four airlines believed to be involved with deportation flights Air France, Titan airways, AlbaStar airlines and Corendon airlines urging them to halt what signatories call shameful involvement with the flights."

"Detainees told the Guardian they were in deep distress about their situation, with some crying and others saying they were suicidal. One Syrian man said: This is a prison, not a detention centre. We are locked up but we have done nothing wrong. The Home Office tell us we are criminals because we arrived here in a small boat but we are not. People are in such a bad state they are shouting and hitting themselves against the walls and doors."

"Another man said he was in agony with a medical problem and has been told by a detention centre doctor that he needed urgent surgery. He did not know whether he would be put on the plane. I can't eat, drink or sleep because I'm in so much pain, he said. Home Office sources said he had been assessed as medically fit to fly."

Twenty-eight refugee and human rights NGOs on both sides of the Channel have sent letters to Air France, Titan Airways, AlbaStar and Corendon urging them to stop deportation flights to France under the UK's one-in, one-out scheme. The letters call for an Air France boycott and demand public declarations from the other carriers that they will no longer deport people for the Home Office. The NGOs accuse the airlines of complicity in cruel forced deportations, including victims of torture, trafficking and modern slavery. Dozens of asylum seekers were reportedly forcibly removed despite warnings about dangers from traffickers, with detainees staging a hunger strike and describing severe distress, self-harm, and untreated medical needs.

Read at www.theguardian.com