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Agreement with UK Immigration allows for deportation of 10 persons per month to Hargeisa
Hargeisa (SL Times) - The Somaliland Ministry of Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Reintegration has accepted the deportation of Somaliland citizens whose applications for asylum in Britain had been rejected.
The rejected asylum seekers though without legal basis to remain in Britain have however continued to stay there in the hope that their cases might be reviewed favorably in the future.
A memorandum of understanding signed by the MRR&R and the UK Immigration Services earlier this week, commits the Somaliland side to accept deportation of a monthly quota of ten Somalilanders from Britain to Hargeisa. The agreement is understood to have been concluded during a visit to Somaliland by Mr. Collin Harbin, head of special operations in the Immigration & Nationality Directorate.
The British official’s visit was apparently kept in low profile. He was introduced at a hastily organized press conference held in the Ministry of Information on Friday noon. Only a small number of selected reporters were able to attend the event as it had been organized to occur at a time when people usually go to mosques for Juma prayers. At one point during the meeting, the Minister of Information, Abdillahi Duale, obstructed a question fielded by a Haatuf reporter to Mr. Harber on whether the planned enforced deportation wouldn’t be seen as a violation of basic human rights of those to be sent back.
Mr. Harper, who was accompanied during his visit to Somaliland by David Bell of the UK embassy in Nairobi and Owen Richards from the British embassy in Addis Ababa, left Hargeisa yesterday afternoon.
An increasing number of reporters have been boycotting press conferences held within the compound of Ministry of Information as an expression of their dissatisfaction with the control that the ministry officials try to impose on such events.
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