LONDON: British authorities could have wrongly deported up to 63 immigrants from the Caribbean, the new interior minister said on Tuesday in the latest revelation on the Windrush scandal that cost his predecessor her job.
The British government is under intense pressure to come clean on the mistreatment of descendants of people from the so-called Windrush generation, who were invited to settle in Britain after World War Two to plug labor shortages.
Although fully entitled to live and work in Britain, an unknown number of Windrush descendants have been wrongly identified as illegal immigrants and denied basic rights such as health care. Some have been detained and may have been wrongly deported.
Sajid Javid, who took over as home secretary, or interior minister, on April 30 after Amber Rudd was forced to resign over her handling of the Windrush scandal, appeared on Tuesday in front of a committee of lawmakers investigating the scandal.
Javid said that so far, Home Office officials had identified 63 records of people who were deported to the Caribbean and who may in fact have been entitled to remain in Britain under rules applying to Windrush immigrants.
Javid said the number was provisional as work on Home Office records was still going on.
However, he said he did not yet have data on how many Windrush immigrants had been detained. A number of cases have been detailed in media reports and have been highlighted in parliament by individual lawmakers, but so far there has been no clarity on the scale of wrongful detentions.
The immigrants are named after the Empire Windrush, one of the first ships to bring Caribbean migrants to Britain in 1948.
The government has tried to portray the Windrush fiasco as an administrative problem in which people got wrongly caught up in immigration controls that were not aimed at them, and were asked to produce extensive documentary proof of their status that authorities had not previously asked them to obtain.
But the opposition Labour party and other critics have argued that the Windrush crisis was a consequence of an anti-immigrant climate at the Home Office which they said dated back to Prime Minister Theresa May’s six years as home secretary between 2010 and 2016.
UK could have wrongly deported up to 63 Caribbean migrants
UK could have wrongly deported up to 63 Caribbean migrants
- The British government is under intense pressure to come clean on the mistreatment of descendants of people from the so-called Windrush generation.
- Although fully entitled to live and work in Britain, an unknown number of Windrush descendants have been wrongly identified as illegal immigrants and denied basic rights such as health care.
Pakistani fighter jet crashes in Jalalabad, pilot captured: Afghan military, police
- Fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban military entered its third day on Saturday
- Pakistan’s strikes on Friday hit Taliban military installations and posts, including in Kabul and Kandahar
JALALABAD: A Pakistani jet has crashed in Jalalabad city and the pilot captured alive, the Afghan military and police said Saturday, with residents telling AFP the man parachuted from the plane before being detained.
"A Pakistani fighter jet was shot down in the sixth district of Jalalabad city, and its pilot was captured alive," police spokesman Tayeb Hammad said.
Wahidullah Mohammadi, spokesman for the military in eastern Afghanistan, confirmed the Pakistani jet was downed by Afghan forces "and the pilot was captured alive".
The AFP journalist heard a jet overhead before blasts from the direction of the airport in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, which sits on the road between Kabul and the Pakistani border.
Fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban military entered its third day on Saturday, following overnight clashes as the international community expressed increasing concern about the conflict and called for urgent talks.
Pakistan’s strikes on Friday hit Taliban military installations and posts, including in Kabul and Kandahar, in one of the deepest Pakistani incursions into its western neighbor in years, officials said.
Islamabad accuses the Taliban of harboring Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants, who it claims are waging an insurgency inside Pakistan, a charge the Taliban denies.
Pakistan described its actions as a response to cross-border assaults, while Kabul denounced them as a breach of its sovereignty, saying it remained open to dialogue but warned any wider conflict would result in serious consequences.
The fighting has raised the risk of a protracted conflict along the rugged 2,600-kilometer frontier.
Diplomatic efforts gathered pace late on Friday as Afghanistan said its foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, spoke by telephone with Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal bin Farhan about reducing tensions and keeping diplomatic channels open.
The European Union called for both sides to de-escalate and engage in dialogue, while the United Nations urged an immediate end to hostilities.
Russia urged both sides to halt the clashes and return to talks, while China said it was deeply concerned and ready to help ease tensions.
The United States supports Pakistan’s right to defend itself against attacks by the Taliban, a State Department spokesperson said.
Border fighting continues
Exchanges of fire continued along the border overnight.
Pakistani security sources said an operation dubbed “Ghazab Lil Haq” was ongoing and that Pakistani forces had destroyed multiple Taliban posts and camps in several sectors. Reuters could not independently verify the claims.
Both sides have reported heavy losses with conflicting tolls that Reuters could not verify. Pakistan said 12 of its soldiers and 274 Taliban were killed while the Taliban said 13 of its fighters and 55 Pakistani soldiers died.
Taliban deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said 19 civilians were killed and 26 wounded in Khost and Paktika. Reuters could not verify the claim.
Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said “our cup of patience has overflowed” and described the fighting as “open war,” warning that Pakistan would respond to further attacks.
Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani said in a speech in Khost province that the conflict “will be very costly,” and that Afghan forces had not deployed broadly beyond those already engaged.
He said the Taliban had defeated “the world, not through technology, but through unity and solidarity,” and through “great patience and perseverance,” rather than superior military power.
Pakistan’s military capabilities far exceed those of Afghanistan, with a standing army of hundreds of thousands and a modern air force.
In stark contrast, the Taliban lacks a conventional air force and relies largely on light weaponry and ground forces.
However, the Islamist group is battle-hardened after two decades of insurgency against US-led forces before returning to power in 2021.
