‘I fled to Ireland from Britain to avoid being deported to Rwanda’

Otumba, in his 40s, came to the UK from Nigeria to claim asylum but fled to Ireland when he found out he might be sent to Rwanda – PP

Home for Abdul Mhammed, a 20-year-old Channel migrant from Sudan, is a blue tent with frayed edges in an encampment that has sprouted up around the main asylum office in the heart of Dublin.

Seagulls pick at litter surrounding overflowing wheelie bins, while tents, cloaked in blue tarpaulin, are pitched in rows four deep, around the Irish capital’s International Protection Office (IPO). The acrid whiff of urine and waste hangs in the air.

Sitting on a makeshift bed and hiding his face behind the flap of his tent, Mr Mhammed tells how he fled from Britain to Ireland to avoid deportation to Rwanda. He was among the first migrants to be notified by letter that he would be sent to the East African country after he arrived in the UK on a small boat in 2022.

Three weeks ago, as Rishi Sunak’s new Safety of Rwanda Act was on course to become law, he took a bus from London to Liverpool, then a ferry to Belfast, before getting a second bus to Dublin.

The encampment of tents grows every week as more migrants arrive – Maxwell’s

He is now one of hundreds of asylum seekers in tents dotted around the IPO in Dublin. Many have fled the UK, using the Common Travel Area to freely cross the border, and sit at the heart of an Anglo-Irish diplomatic row after Mr Sunak refused Ireland’s request to take back any migrants who had crossed the border to Dublin.

“I am more confident about my position here than I am in the UK,” Mr Mhammed told The Telegraph. “Here, they don’t say anything. The UK says ‘go to Rwanda’. The UK is safe, but now it says to go to Rwanda and it is not safe. If the UK was not saying anything, I would not come here.”

Mr Mhammed is thought to be among 5,700 migrants identified by the UK Government for removal to Rwanda, of whom only 2,145 (38 per cent) “continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention”, according to a document released on Monday.

The Home Office insists the remaining 3,557 are not “missing” and that many are still subject to reporting requirements. But Mr Mhammed’s flight across the Irish Sea suggests some are already absconding and Ireland has become their bolthole. “I crossed because they wanted to send me to Rwanda. I don’t want to go,” he said.

He was initially placed in a hotel in London when he arrived in 2022 but left the Home Office-provided accommodation after receiving a letter telling him that he was earmarked to be deported to Rwanda.

He is among a cohort of migrants who arrived from January 2022 to June 2023 and whom the Home Office intends to hold in detention ready for deportation flights to Rwanda in 10 to 12 weeks’ time.

In the intervening two years, Mr Mhammed has been living with a friend in England. “Every country in Africa is not safe,” he said. “Before, did you know the story of Rwanda? It was very bad. I’m from Sudan. I left the hotel, went to stay with my friend, then after that, I came here. I took a bus from London to Liverpool, then went from Liverpool to Belfast by boat. I then took a bus. I did it by myself.”

It is estimated there are as many as 1,750 asylum seekers in the growing encampment around the IPO. Many have been here for months, living out in the cold.

Asylum seekers line up outside the International Protection Office in the hope of getting an appointment – Maxwell’s

Written on the side of some tents are messages written in red paint. “Stop normalising cruelty,” read one. “We are not subhuman,” said another. A mixture of Palestinian and Irish flags tied to lamp posts and railings bluster limply in the driving rain.

Sleeping in their tents, some with small children and some all alone, they have come from all quarters of the globe. From Gaza to Afghanistan, Sudan to Nigeria, their journeys have coincided at Dublin’s growing tent city.

Descending the underpass behind the IPO, a steady drip feed of migrants line up in the rain for an appointment. They are let in slowly, in groups of five at a time. Some hold their documents in brown envelopes. Some have no documents at all.

Those who aren’t lining up mill around, many wearing no more than flip flops, T-shirts and tracksuit bottoms, waiting to be told if today is the day they get an appointment or chance of accommodation.

Many migrants have been here for months, living in leaky red tents draped in weathered blue tarpaulin sheets – Maxwell’s

Father of two Mohammed Alsafe, 47, a Palestinian painter who fled the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, came from the UK to Dublin two months ago having stayed in London for just a day. He arrived in England on a small boat across the Channel having made his way from Jordan to France.

He took a ferry to Belfast, where he made contact with a Northern Irish man via social media and paid him to take him across the border to Dublin.

“I saw him on Facebook, I pay him €4,300 to take me from Belfast to Dublin. That man tells me: ‘Give me money and come here. I gave him money in Belfast,” said Mr Alsafe. “I don’t know where I was going, I am in the car boxed up. I don’t see where I am going. I didn’t know what, I didn’t see anything.”

He added: “I need to live. There were no visas in Belfast. In the UK there are no visas. The Government it maybe makes you go to Rwanda. I see it on the news and on social media. I think the UK Government will pay for you to go to Rwanda. Rwanda is not good.”

Sri Lankan Adhi A, 23, who arrived in Dublin from the UK on March 20, said: “Everyone is coming here now because maybe they are scared about going to the African country (Rwanda).”

Otumba, in his 40s, came to the UK from Nigeria to claim asylum, using a tourist visa to get into the country, but fled to Ireland when he found out he might be sent to Rwanda. Claiming to be a “political fugitive”, he spent four months in the UK before flying from Birmingham to Belfast then catching a bus to Dublin.

“When I heard that the Rwanda Bill was going to be passed in no time, I was so scared. And people advised me to go to Ireland and said they were going to be really accommodating. I didn’t know we were going to be sleeping in tents. I thought we were going to get proper houses and stuff,” he said.

Ahi A left the UK in March to seek asylum in Dublin – Maxwell’s

The words of the asylum seekers appear to confirm claims by political leaders on both sides of the Irish Sea that Rwanda is already having a deterrent effect. And it is not just those who are fleeing the UK who declare it as a reason for their journey to Dublin.

Obeda, 30, from Gaza, fled Khan Younis to Egypt, where he paid $8,000 for fake documents to fly to Turkey and then to France. From there, he travelled by fishing boat to Dublin. He lost a brother and sister in the war in Gaza and said he just wanted to “start a new life”.

“I would rather die with my brothers and family in Gaza than go to Rwanda,” he said.

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