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South African help sought on refugees

South Africa last night emerged as the second country with which the Home Office has started talks to take failed asylum seekers from Britain as part of a concerted drive to step up immigration removals and deportations.

The Home Office confirmed that it hopes to win South African cooperation in agreeing to take failed asylum seekers from Britain who have falsely claimed to be Zimbabweans.

Tony Blair confirmed in the Commons yesterday the Guardian's disclosure that negotiations with Tanzania are already under way for a £4m British-funded pilot scheme under which rejected asylum seekers would be sent to the African country as part of an overseas aid deal.

But last night Tanzania, which already houses more refugees than any other sub-Saharan country, said it had rejected the idea.

"We reject this proposal because we don't see the reason or the logic for refugees to be sent to Tanzania before they are returned to their own country," said John Chiligati, Tanzania's deputy minister for home affairs.

Mr Blair's official spokesman had confirmed that there is a second African country that Britain was hoping to persuade to tackle the problem but declined to name it. "I think at the moment my understanding is, it is one other country at the moment - in the same area."

But the Home Office confirmed yesterday to the Guardian that it had opened talks with South Africa as well. "We have spoken to South Africa and only had very preliminary discussions about cooperating on returning South Africans who may have falsely claimed to be Zimbabweans when they claimed asylum in Britain."

Oxfam and refugee welfare groups warned the government against making aid to Tanzania conditional on cooperation with asylum returns. They also warned that the moves opened up a new attempt by the Home Office to deport failed asylum seekers to third countries.

A joint Home Office-Foreign Office team visited Dar es Salaam last year to discuss with Tanzanian officials the establishment of a processing centre in the country and a camp to deal with those wishing to claim asylum "in-region" but also to take failed Somali asylum seekers from Britain.

The Home Office insists that those who will be returned to Tanzania are people who had falsely posed as Somalians to gain refugee status in Britain.

Somalia, which has been the scene of a civil war, now heads the list of countries from which asylum seekers head for Britain.

At prime minister's question time, Tony Blair was pressed by the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy, over British negotiations with Tanzania to take failed asylum seekers. Mr Kennedy warned that such a move could lead to "an international trade in displaced people". He asked if negotiations were taking place with other countries.

Mr Blair said: "We are in negotiations with the Tanzanian government as to how we can process claims for asylum nearer to the country of origin."

He added: "I honestly cannot understand the objection to seeing whether it is possible, if there are people who are going to make asylum claims, and begin their asylum journey close to the country of origin, why it is not sensible to process some of those claims there."

He referred only to the creation of centres to process asylum seekers and not to sending failed Somali asylum seekers to Tanzania.

Mr Kennedy later told the BBC: "It is not an issue here of processing people here closer to their country of origin. It is a matter of people who actually come to our country, for whatever reasons, who seek to achieve asylum status who are then denied it, who are then being sent potentially to a third country with a cheque attached to take the matter off our hands."

The Downing Street spokesman said the Tanzanian deal was a pilot scheme "exploring how we can help them process asylum applications which arise in Tanzania".

But refugee welfare organisations are convinced the Tanzanian scheme and the putative negotiations with South Africa will mean rejected asylum seekers from Somalia and Zimbabwe being sent from Britain to a neighbouring third country. Home Office officials are believed to have been making a "Cook's tour of the world" in their attempt to get new agreements to take Britain's rejected migrants.

The difficulty of returning rejected asylum seekers to their countries of origin have long dogged attempts by ministers to increase the number of removals each year. A record 17,000 asylum seekers were removed last year, but that figure is far short of the 61,000 who applied.

China has proved a particular problem for British immigration officials, with the Chinese authorities reluctant to take back failed migrants whose nationality is in doubt because they have destroyed their documents. Mr Blair will press the Chinese premier when he comes to Britain on new ways of substantially increasing the numbers sent back to China from Britain.

About this article

South African help sought on refugees

This article was published on
the Guardian website
at 21.12 EST on Wednesday 25 February 2004.
It was last modified at 21.12 EDT on Monday 26 April 2004.
It was first published at 21.12 EDT on Monday 26 April 2004.