Afghan refugees made to move school take UK to court

A institution of Afghan households delivered to London after the Taliban took electricity are taking the authorities to courtroom docket due to the fact a next flow north intended their kids needed to depart a neighborhood faculty all through their GCSE studies.

Four households had been moved from a London inn to 1 in northern England. A loss of faculty locations close to their new brief domestic has on the grounds that set returned the teenagers’ training, the households say. The Home Office stated it turned into attempting to find everlasting houses for Afghans.

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In a -day listening to on the High Court subsequent week, the Afghans’ legal professionals will argue the Home Office has now no longer addressed the effect of the inn flow at the kid’s schooling.

Teachers at Ark Walworth Academy, in south London, enrolled a number of the kids, who had been dwelling at a close-by inn – and that they had started running closer to their GCSEs.

But in August 2022, Home Office officers advised the households they might be moved to new lodging whilst the authorities stopped the usage of the inn to residence refugees.

The Afghans had been given information in their new domestic, which a courtroom docket order prevents BBC News from finding specifically, in a textual content message.

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One of the girls, Marzia, 15, now gets on line lessons, in her inn, from instructors at Ark Walworth Academy. Her classmate Najma, 15, has discovered a faculty however has to copy Year 10. Marzia stated: “They advised us they had been going to position us in an excellent faculty. They broke their promise. The inn is sort of a jail.

“A inn is a great region however for a holiday – now no longer for nearly years.” Ark Walworth Academy important Jessica West stated the faculty had been “extra than satisfied to offer them with an training on a brief basis”.

“What is tough is to peer them flow from a scenario that turned into precarious, that we did the whole lot we ought to to try to shore up for them, to any other scenario that isn’t always everlasting and is simply as precarious,” she added.

The Afghans’ legal professionals say the Home Office is required, below the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act, to “shield and sell the welfare of kids” whilst it makes any immigration choice.

But courtroom docket papers advise the Home Office will argue a choice to transport refugees among “bridging” motels withinside the UK isn’t always an immigration choice.

The Afghan households’ solicitor, Daniel Rourke, from the Public Law Project, stated he turned into hopeful his customers might win the case and be allowed to go back to south London.

“They had been promised a heat welcome and it’s miles pretty chilling to now listen the house secretary argue in courtroom docket that she owes no responsibility to have any regard to the quality pursuits of the kids which are suffering from this critical choice to uproot them and flow them masses of miles to stay in an airport temporarily,” Mr Rourke stated.

A Home Office spokesman stated: “The UK is proud to have already supplied houses for almost 7,four hundred Afghan evacuees, thru the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme and Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy. While motels do now no longer offer a long-time period solution, they do provide ok area and steady and easy lodging.

“We will retain to deliver down the quantity of human beings in bridging motels, shifting human beings into extra sustainable lodging.”