An Afghan migrant, whose brother was murdered by the Taliban, says he still plans to make the dangerous journey across the English Channel to bring his family to Britain, even as British flights begin carrying asylum seekers asylum to Rwanda.
It comes as the UK did signed a new treaty with the African nation which number 10 hopes will get its flagship policy back on track.
Wasir, a former interpreter for British forces in Helmand, was left hopeful his family’s trip will be successful thanks to the safe arrival of his younger brother in Britain last Thursday, despite the water from his boat.
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Wasir has already paid smugglers, which he hopes will allow him, his wife and their five children, aged one to nine, to also arrive in the UK next year.
They attempted to leave Afghanistan as Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021, but were unsuccessful.
Nasir, Wasir’s elder brother, had already been killed by his fighters.
He asked us to protect his younger brother’s identity, which is why we call him Omar.
A video filmed by Omar from the Channel crossing shows men clinging to the edge of a small dinghy while children and a woman huddle inside the boat.
Wasir said he received a brief phone call from Omar telling him the boat had started taking on water but they had all arrived in the UK safely.
For Omar, it was the culmination of more than a year of travel, from Afghanistan to Turkey, through the Balkans to Switzerland and then to France.
The UK was always his intended destination. “Other European countries do not accept Afghans,” says Wasir.
“(The) UK is the country that pays attention to human rights – especially in the UK, people pay attention to human rights and respect humans.
“So for various reasons, many people take the risk and travel to the UK for safety reasons.”
It is a view he maintains despite the British government signing a treaty with Rwanda, which Home Secretary James Cleverly says addresses all the reasons that led the Supreme Court to judge the asylum policy illegal.
On November 15, the United Kingdom’s highest court blocked the plan, fearing that genuine refugees would be wrongly returned to their home countries where they would be persecuted.
To remedy this situation, the new treaty provides for British and Commonwealth judges to preside over a newly established appeal procedure within the High Court of Rwanda for exceptional cases.
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Another key measure is the commitment that no one will be deported by Rwanda to any country other than the UK.
“Yes, I’m really worried about it (the treaty). I ask that it stop,” Wasir said. But he says migrants remain hopeful the planes won’t take off.
“The only hope they have is the people who are in the UK and fighting this,” he says.
“They believe that those who challenge the government can keep them safe.”
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Wasir says that even if the UK started sending migrants to Rwanda, people in his situation would still risk the boat journey to Britain.
“Unfortunately, people have no other option,” he says. “For what they have to do. They have no other way.”
Additional reporting by Nick Stylianou, Communities Producer