A Channel migrant has said he has been left “traumatised” by the prospect of being deported from the UK and is prepared to take his own life rather than be sent to Rwanda.
The trainee engineer, who fled war-torn Sudan six years ago, said he wrote a will and a goodbye letter to his family after learning he would be among the first destined for the east African nation.
The government has been forced to delay the first flights after campaigners lodged legal challenges against the controversial policy.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said on Wednesday she was “pushing ahead” with the “world-leading plan”.
Speaking to the Press Association news agency through an Arabic interpreter from the scandal-hit Brook House detention centre in West Sussex, the Sudanese migrant, who wanted to be known only as Ali, said: “I will kill myself before I get deported – if the UK as a government and a country cannot uphold human rights, who will?”
Ali arrived in the UK two weeks ago with a dozen other Sudanese migrants.
He had spent two years in detention in Libya where he said he was tortured, before making his way through continental Europe to Calais. He waited there for seven months before crossing the Channel in a boat.
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He said the family sold their home to pay people smugglers and did not know about the Rwanda plan.
Ali said: “I was trying to get here for six years to rebuild my life.
“Upon receiving the news from the Home Office, once I realised I was being moved to Rwanda, I wrote down my will and asked my solicitor to send my goodbye letter and my will to my mother and my wife.
“I will kill himself before I go to Rwanda.”
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He added: “I am speechless, I can’t think how I feel. For which crime am I being sent to Rwanda?
“I am traumatised, I don’t know how to express my feelings.”
Since the start of this year, 8,697 people have reached the UK from France in small boats, according to analysis of government data by the Press Association.
However, campaigners including Care4Calais, say they have “serious concerns” about the policy and plan to bring a judicial review.
Read more:
First group of illegal migrants will be sent to Rwanda within a fortnight
Asylum seekers ‘willing to go into hiding’ to avoid Rwanda plan
The Rwanda ‘guest house’ where the UK plans to send Channel migrants
