Sudanese refugees face deportation from UK as government fails to set up safe and legal routes

Asylum seekers who resort to small boats face being criminalised and deported from UK despite conflict

Sudanese refugees face being criminalised and deported from the UK because there are no safe and legal routes for most people fleeing the conflict.

The British government is not planning to set up a bespoke scheme for the country like those used for Ukraine and Afghanistan, The Independent understands, and is only evacuating British citizens and embassy staff.

Almost 4,000 Sudanese small-boat migrants have crossed the English Channel since 2020, and they are already the eighth-highest nationality using the route.

When questioned at an event in central London on Tuesday, immigration minister Robert Jenrick suggested he expected a rise in Sudanese small boat crossings, saying it was “likely that, in time, there will be migratory effects” of the crisis.

Mr Jenrick insisted that the government did “have safe and legal routes, more broadly”, but maintained its position that “those in peril should seek sanctuary in the first safe country they reach”.

Conflict has broken out in Khartoum as MPs prepare to debate changes to the Illegal Migration Bill, which would see small boat asylum seekers detained and deported regardless of the merit of their claims.

Conservative MP Tim Loughton, who is bringing an amendment forcing the government to create new safe and legal routes, has repeatedly challenged the government on the lack of alternatives to small boats for African refugees.

He told The Independent that the unfolding dilemma for Sudanese asylum seekers was “exactly” the situation he feared.

“This is why the additional routes which my amendment now heralds would help with that,” Mr Loughton said.

In an exchange with home secretary Suella Braverman at parliament’s Home Affairs Committee, he asked what would happen to a “16-year-old orphan from an east African country escaping a warzone” who wanted to join relatives in the UK.

“What is a safe and legal route for me to come to the United Kingdom?” Mr Loughton asked in November. “What scheme is open to me?”

Ms Braverman replied: “If you are able to get to the UK, you are able to put in an application for asylum.”

The home secretary had no answer when Mr Loughton asked how the hypothetical African teenager could get a visa or board a commercial flight, and concluded: “I would only enter the UK illegally then, wouldn’t I?”

Britons stuck in Sudan have told people to get to an airfield outside Khatoum for RAF evacuation (Reuters)

There is no asylum visa for people wanting to reach the UK legally, and it is unclear how people could practically apply for other types of visa and take commercial flights to Britain amid the chaos in Khartoum.

The Independent understands that some Sudanese relatives of British nationals have been denied temporary visas and excluded from evacuation flights, including the 87-year-old grandmother of a British doctor.

“The Foreign Office just contacted my father and told him they can only evacuate him and his sister, but not my grandmother as she is not a British citizen,” the doctor who is calling herself Dr A to protect her family, told The Independent on Tuesday.

“The UK cannot expect him to evacuate, leaving his 87-year-old mother on her own in the middle of war in Khartoum. The house is located close to the fighting at the airport.

“It is inhuman. This is not acceptable. My father will not leave his mother behind, he will not leave.”

After initially advising people to stay inside unless they are selected for evacuation, the UK government has now told Britons stuck in the country to get to an airfield outside Khartoum to board RAF evacuation flights as soon as possible.

But Sir Nicholas Kay, a former British ambassador to Sudan, warned that moving around was “very difficult”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The security situation can change very quickly … the geography of Khartoum makes it very difficult.

“There are a lot of bridges that need to be crossed to get around the city, and each of those is controlled by one of the armed groups.”

A fragile 72-hour ceasefire between rival military factions battling for control of Africa’s third-largest country is due to expire on Friday, and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is warning of large movements of people internally and into neighbouring countries.

On Tuesday, the agency said it expected the fighting to “trigger further displacement” and was scaling up camps in countries neighbouring Sudan.

“So far, the most significant cross-border movements in the region have been Sudanese fleeing to Chad, and South Sudanese refugees returning to South Sudan,” a UNHCR spokesperson said. “We have also received reports of people starting to arrive in Egypt.”

Sudan also shares a land border with Libya, which is already a dominant route for people seeking to reach Europe using treacherous boat journeys over the Mediterranean Sea.

Many of those who reach Italy travel onwards to other European countries, including those who go to France in the hope of crossing the Channel.

The Refugee Council said most people in Sudan had “no safe route to the UK” and that the government should share responsibility for those fleeing with nations that lack capacity.

Chief executive Enver Solomon added: “It is wrong that the ministers reference ‘generous resettlement routes’ which simply do not exist for most people – hence Afghans making up the highest number of people forced into dangerous journeys on small boats.”

A legal change last year made arriving in British waters without permission a crime and people have been jailed for steering dinghies, while the government has been intensifying efforts to deport small boat migrants without considering their claims.

Rishi Sunak has vowed that small boat migrants will be detained and deported under the new migration bill, and thousands of asylum seekers have already been threatened with transfer to Rwanda because they travelled through safe countries on their way to Britain.

The Refugee Council said most people in Sudan had “no safe route to the UK” and that the government should share responsibility for those fleeing with nations that lack capacity.

Chief executive Enver Solomon added: “It is wrong that the ministers reference ‘generous resettlement routes’ which simply do not exist for most people – hence Afghans making up the highest number of people forced into dangerous journeys on small boats.”