Britain Threatens Eritrea With a Complete Visa Ban
From today Eritrean diplomats may not travel more than 60km outside London without permission, and fast-track visas for senior figures have been stopped. The home secretary has threatened a complete ban on Eritreans entering the country unless it accepts the return of more small-boat arrivals and foreign offenders. Eritreans were the most common nationality among small-boat arrivals in the year to June, at 18%.
The measure runs into an awkward number. About 84% of Eritrean asylum claims are accepted at the first decision, the second highest rate of any nationality, which means most of the people arriving cannot lawfully be returned at all. Madeleine Sumption of Oxford’s Migration Observatory says roughly 1,400 were initially refused in the last year of data and that the figure falls further on appeal, so the pool available for removal is small. She also notes that the countries with the largest numbers of refused but unreturned nationals are Pakistan and Bangladesh, where visa penalties would cost Britain far more in students and workers. The Home Office says the diplomatic restrictions mirror those placed on British officials in Asmara. The approach has been used before: Angola and Namibia agreed terms before restrictions began, and those imposed on the Democratic Republic of Congo were lifted once cooperation improved. Young Eritreans commonly leave to avoid military conscription that can run for decades in a one-party state that has never held an election. Separately this morning the Foreign Office urged de-escalation over worsening tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea.