LONDON: Britain’s Labour government is planning “a major surge” in returns of irregular migrants to countries including Iraq, an official said Thursday, as it tries to clear an asylum backlog.
The interior ministry has posted a contract seeking commercial partners to support the “reintegration” of people with no right to live in the UK in their home countries.
The contract, worth £15 million ($19.7 million) over three years, was published last week and first reported by the Financial Times on Thursday.
The advert says the ministry is seeking “to identify appropriate reintegration delivery providers” to help migrants return from the UK to 11 different countries.
The countries are Albania, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Jamaica, Nigeria, Pakistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
Contractors will help with provision of food packs, assist the tracing of family members and provide support with accessing job markets among other things, according to the bid notice.
Interior minister Yvette Cooper announced last week that the government aims over the next six months to achieve the highest rate of deportations of failed asylum seekers in five years.
The goal is to remove more than 14,000 people by the end of the year, according to UK media reports.
“The government is planning to deliver a major surge in immigration enforcement and returns activity to remove people with no right to be in the UK and ensure the rules are respected and enforced,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement.
“Continued international cooperation with partner nations plays a critical role in this, and we will be working closely with a number of countries across the globe as part of the mission to end irregular migration.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, elected to office early last month, has also pledged to “smash the gangs” of people smugglers bringing irregular migrants to Britain on small boats sailing across the Channel.
More than 20,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing from France on rudimentary vessels so far this year, according to the latest figures.
That is marginally up on last year’s data for the same period, but down on 2022.
Refugee charities have urged the government to create more safe routes to deter people from making the perilous journey.
Official figures released last week showed that almost 119,000 people were waiting for a decision on their asylum application at the end of June 2024.
UK seeks to speed up migrant returns
https://arab.news/c6f5m
UK seeks to speed up migrant returns
- Advert says the ministry is seeking “to identify appropriate reintegration delivery providers” to help migrants return from the UK to 11 different countries
- Countries are Albania, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Jamaica, Nigeria, Pakistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe
China’s top diplomat to visit Somalia on Africa tour
- Stop in Mogadishu provides diplomatic boost after Israel formally recognized breakaway Somaliland
- Tour focusses on Beijing's strategic trade access across eastern and southern Africa
BEIJING: China’s top diplomat began his annual New Year tour of Africa on Wednesday, focusing on strategic trade access across eastern and southern Africa as Beijing seeks to secure key shipping routes and resource supply lines.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to Ethiopia, Africa’s fastest-growing large economy; Somalia, a Horn of Africa state offering access to key global shipping lanes; Tanzania, a logistics hub linking minerals-rich central Africa to the Indian Ocean; and Lesotho, a small southern African economy squeezed by US trade measures. His trip this year runs until January 12.
Beijing aims to highlight countries it views as model partners of President Xi Jinping’s flagship “Belt and Road” infrastructure program and to expand export markets, particularly in young, increasingly affluent economies such as Ethiopia, where the IMF forecasts growth of 7.2 percent this year.
China, the world’s largest bilateral lender, faces growing competition from the European Union to finance African infrastructure, as countries hit by pandemic-era debt strains now seek investment over loans.
“The real litmus test for 2026 isn’t just the arrival of Chinese investment, but the ‘Africanization’ of that investment. As Wang Yi visits hubs like Ethiopia and Tanzania, the conversation must move beyond just building roads to building factories,” said Judith Mwai, policy analyst at Development Reimagined, an Africa-focussed consultancy.
“For African leaders, this tour is an opportunity to demand that China’s ‘small yet beautiful’ projects specifically target our industrial gaps, turning African raw materials into finished products on African soil, rather than just facilitating their exit,” she added.
On his start-of-year trip in 2025, Wang visited Namibia, the Republic of Congo, Chad and Nigeria.
His visit to Somalia will be the first by a Chinese foreign minister since the 1980s and is expected to provide Mogadishu with a diplomatic boost after Israel became the first country to formally recognize the breakaway Republic of Somaliland, a northern region that declared itself independent in 1991.
Beijing, which reiterated its support for Somalia after the Israeli announcement in December, is keen to reinforce its influence around the Gulf of Aden, the entrance to the Red Sea and a vital corridor for Chinese trade transiting the Suez Canal to Europe.
Further south, Tanzania is central to Beijing’s plan to secure access to Africa’s vast copper deposits. Chinese firms are refurbishing the Tazara Railway that runs through the country into Zambia. Li Qiang made a landmark trip to Zambia in November, the first visit by a Chinese premier in 28 years.
The railway is widely seen as a counterweight to the US and European Union-backed Lobito Corridor, which connects Zambia to Atlantic ports via Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
By visiting the southern African kingdom of Lesotho, Wang aims to highlight Beijing’s push to position itself as a champion of free trade. Last year, China offered tariff-free market access to its $19 trillion economy for the world’s poorest nations, fulfilling a pledge by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 2024 China-Africa Cooperation summit in Beijing.
Lesotho, one of the world’s poorest nations with a gross domestic product of just over $2 billion, was among the countries hardest hit by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs last year, facing duties of up to 50 percent on its exports to the United States.
