BAGHDAD — Around 30 asylum seekers who were refused entry to Iraq after being deported by Britain were barred as they were unable to prove they were Iraqis, a government spokesman said Saturday.
Britain had originally flown 44 failed asylum seekers who claimed they were Iraqi to Baghdad on Thursday. Only 10 were allowed to remain, while the others were flown back to Britain and placed in a detention centre.
"We need to verify the identities of those people before receiving them," the Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, told AFP.
"Only 10 of them were Iraqis, some of the others were Palestinian and some were Egyptian. Many asylum seekers claim they are Iraqi when they reach the UK or Europe, but actually they are not."
Asked how he could be sure that some of the failed asylum seekers were not Iraqi, Dabbagh said: "We are sure that some of them are Egyptians because they said they were Egyptians."
"We asked, 'why are they sending you?' and they said that they declared they were Iraqis to claim asylum in UK."
Dabbagh criticised British immigration authorities for "not doing a proper job by sending any person to Iraq... If they want to send any more, they have to check with our immigration authorities."
"After we check, we issue them with an Iraqi passport at the embassy in London."
Thursday's flight, which was strongly opposed by refugee and human rights groups, was the first taking failed asylum seekers back to Baghdad since the start of the Iraq war in 2003.
Amnesty International said it was opposed to moving asylum seekers back to central and southern Iraq, which was "likely to put their life in danger."
"Given the reports of killings, bombings and other human rights abuses that continue to come out of Baghdad, it is hard to comprehend that the UK government considers it a safe place to return people," a spokesman said.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
