[ 2014-10-22 ]

UK deports 25 Ghanaians
About 25 Ghanaians are being deported from the
United Kingdom (UK) to Ghana on Wednesday. The 25
people are among 72 West Africans being deported
from the UK for various offences.

The deportees are coming in a char­tered flight
which will be touching down at the Kotoka
International Airport today. This is the first
deportation from the UK this year. Last year, the
UK de­ported 219 Ghanaians to the country. The
Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) confirmed the news
when con­tacted by The Finder, adding that
British authorities communicated it to the GIS.

According to The Finder’s sources, the
deportees, both males and females, have varied
professional backgrounds and fall under the
various age groups. The source said reasons for
depor­tation are overstay of visa and
involve­ment in criminal activities. Some of the
deportees have worked in the UK for over 10 years.
According to the source, the depor­tees are
coming with armed escorts who would release them
to their fam­ilies.

The GIS told The Finder that on ar­rival, the
airline would inform immi­gration that deportees
are on board. Immigration officers at the fraud
office will then be assigned to the flight to
receive the escorts and depor­tees. The GIS
explained that the escorts would then present
documents on the deportees covering their names,
of­fences committed and other relevant
information to the GIS fraud office.

The GIS fraud office will in turn take statements
from the deportees, which would be added to the
docu­ments presented to them by the es­corts,
before they will allow the deportees to go home.
The Telegraph of UK on Tuesday, February 25, 2014
reported that more than 3,000 foreign criminals
are fight­ing deportation. The paper said almost
2,300 of the foreign offenders awaiting
deportation were told to leave more than a year
ago, with more than 600 others still in the UK
five years after being told they must go home.

Overall, 3,133 foreign offenders were in the UK as
of September last year, including 64 who could not
be deported because the authorities did not even
know their identity or nation­ality. The figures
were released after it emerged earlier this month
that Britain was being forced to pay tens of
mil­lions of pounds to keep nearly 1,500 foreign
criminals behind bars beyond the term of their
sentence as they fight deportation. The cost could
reach the equivalent of £55 million a year as
more than 500 foreign prisoners are held in jails
after their sentences have ended while al­most
1,000 are being kept in immigra­tion removal
centres, figures showed.

Data from the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS)
revealed that as many as 2,940 Ghanaians were
deported to Ghana last year while the number of
Ghanaians who were refused entry into the various
countries they were travelling to at airports
amounted to 676. The United Kingdom tops the list
of European countries while Libya de­ported the
highest number of Ghana­ians.

The deportees came from several countries such as
Germany, Holland, Canada, United States of America
(USA), Spain and Saudi Arabia. According to the
data, a total of 237 Ghanaians were voluntarily
repa­triated from various countries to Ghana last
year. The GIS information also indicates that 179
people who hid aboard ships (stowaways) in order
to obtain free passage into other countries were
also arrested and deported to Ghana.

Source - The Finder

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