Documents released by the Home Office showed the detainees self-harmed, threatened to kill themselves and were subjected to painful restraint after pleading not to be deported from the UK. One man was found slashing his wrists with shards from a drinks can, while another hit his head on a plane seat while shouting “No, no” in desperate scenes on June 14. The shocking testimony, obtained by Liberty Investigates under freedom of information laws and seen by The Independent, comes as the first judicial review of Rwanda’s policy begins on Monday. The groups filing the case said the documents showed the “horror” to be expected if flights were to take place, adding: “If this evidence does not persuade the new prime minister to change his mind and scrap these proposals, surely nothing will.” They called on the new prime minister to scrap the plan, but campaigner Liz Truss has pledged to “support and expand Rwanda’s policy to more countries”. Yasmin Ahmed, UK director of Human Rights Watch, said many people targeted by the program had already “suffered unimaginable horror”. “It is incomprehensible that our government is now trying to deport them in a country known for repression,” he told the Independent. “Reports of self-harm and utter anguish among those evicted only serve to highlight that the government is happy to re-traumatize and further victimize people who seek our protection. This is nothing less than a moral and legal aberration.” Forms filled out by detention staff following “incidents of violence” show how detainees began crying, screaming, shouting and frantically calling their lawyers and loved ones after being told they would be sent to Rwanda. When officers went to collect an asylum seeker from his room at Colnbrook Immigration Centre, near Heathrow Airport, they found him self-harming in his bed. One report said he was bleeding after making “cuts on his right arm using parts of a drinks can” and wouldn’t stop cutting himself until officers grabbed his arms. The man was treated by a nurse before being handed over to attendants tasked with taking him to the plane, which was waiting at Boscombe Down military base in Wiltshire. How did the ECtHR stop the first deportation flight from Rwanda? He was placed under constant surveillance as part of an official suicide prevention strategy, while a second asylum seeker told staff he would “kill himself” if he was forced to board the flight. The detainee was then placed in a waist restraint and physically restrained in an airplane seat. When he started thrashing around and yelling “No, no”, his head was held in place by security staff, who said they had to “make sure he didn’t headbutt any of the attendants or get hurt”. “He continued to scream,” an official report filed about the use of force said. “At around 10.16pm we were informed that the flight was cancelled. Immediately he stopped shouting… he was beaming with joy and hugged each of us in turn, it was very touching.” Reports said a third man “told the interpreter he did not want to go and dropped to the floor on his knees” before being taken out of the Colnbrook Immigration Centre. Staff described him as “very distressed” and said that after boarding the plane he “started screaming and banging his head on the seat in front”. One of the officers described holding down his wrists, hands and head, and then, when he started biting his tongue, used a “angle of the mandible” pain technique to get him to release it. Home Office guidance states that such pain-inducing techniques should never be used when there is no alternative, but are “justified if this is the only viable and practical way of dealing with a violent incident involving an immediate risk of serious bodily harm”. The man was detained until it was announced that the flight would not take off, following a wave of legal challenges and injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights. Priti Patel and Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Vincent Biruta sign a partnership on migration and economic development in Kigali in April (PA Wire) A fourth inmate was wearing a waist restraint and suffered wrist pain on a truck to the airport because he “became a nuisance” after an emotional phone call to his sister. A guard officer said he “applied pressure to get compliance” and his colleague said the man was “screaming that his wrist hurt and his heart was breaking”. Officers later took the “very upset” man onto the plane with his hands restrained. The forms describe how a fifth passenger was “showered” from a detention center after he refused to leave and said he would not go to Rwanda. An officer said that while staff tried to get him to leave voluntarily, he “appeared to vomit, holding his stomach and leaning forward.” The harrowing accounts were revealed days before the first of two legal challenges against the Rwandan policy was heard at the Supreme Court. No further flight attempts have taken place and all asylum seekers put on the June charter have been released from immigration detention after threats of legal action for wrongful imprisonment. Care4Calais, which is one of the charities bringing the legal challenge, said the bills were “further evidence of the mental and physical damage the Rwandan government’s brutal deportation policy is causing to refugees”. Founder Clare Moseley added: “Given the more humane and effective options available, is this barbaric policy really what our country wants to do?” The PCS union, which represents Border Force staff and is also backing legal action, said the evidence “reveals further horrors behind the Government’s plans”. “Refugees are terrified of what awaits them, while our members are in the deeply unwelcome position of having to implement Rwanda’s policy – they see it as grossly inhumane and rightly so,” said Paul O’Connor. “When security guards restrain people to prevent them from harming themselves, the sheer inhumanity of this policy is clearly shown. If these testimonies do not convince the new prime minister to change his mind and cancel these proposals, surely nothing will.” Bella Sankey, director of Detention Action, said the testimonies should “shame the government”. He added: “To ask public servants to use force against self-harming asylum seekers in order to send them to a country where they face the risk of further persecution is deeply dangerous. The incoming prime minister must abandon this policy or be prepared to dehumanize not only those subject to it, but also those charged with implementing it.” On Friday, the government announced the appointment of an eight-member Independent Monitoring Commission to oversee the accord’s human rights compliance, but lawyers have already warned that the commitments are not legally binding or enforceable. One of the four UK appointees, Alexander Downer, is a former Australian government minister who was among the architects of an offshore policy that saw refugees commit suicide and self-immolation on Nauru and Manus Island. A Home Office spokesman said: “Our staff and escort providers are rigorously trained to ensure the safety of returnees throughout the removal process. “Our world-leading Migration Partnership with Rwanda will see those making dangerous, illegal and unnecessary journeys to the UK resettled in Rwanda and, if recognized as refugees, supported to build a new life there.”
