UK THREATENS VISA BAN ON ERITREANS OVER RETURNS DISPUTE

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has threatened to ban all Eritreans from entering the UK unless Eritrea agrees to accept the return of rejected asylum seekers and foreign offenders. Eritrean VIPs and officials have already lost fast-track access to UK visas, and from Thursday Eritrean diplomats will face restrictions on travelling more than 60km outside London without permission, which the Home Office said mirrors restrictions already placed on British officials in Eritrea's capital, Asmara. The Home Office said Eritrea had "abruptly" withdrawn cooperation on returns earlier this year. Mahmood said: "Eritrea has had every chance to accept the return of criminals and those with no right to be in the UK. Unlike other countries, it has refused." She added that she would "not hesitate" to impose further measures on other countries that refuse to cooperate.

Eritreans were the most common nationality among people arriving in the UK by small boat in the year to June, according to House of Commons Library figures cited by one report, which put them at 18% of arrivals. The Home Office said just over 100 refused Eritrean asylum seekers had been deported out of 2,626 whose claims were rejected over the past four years, fewer than 4%. The move follows similar visa sanction threats against Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2025, with Angola and Namibia subsequently agreeing to cooperate and the DRC reaching an agreement in February. Ministers also halted study visas for nationals of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan, and work visas for Afghans, in March.

Refugee organisations said the UK should be cautious about rejecting Eritrean applicants, given the country's war-torn status and the high proportion of claims historically accepted. Dr Madeleine Sumption of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that targeting Eritrea would have "little impact", noting 84% of Eritrean asylum seekers succeed at initial decision, with more succeeding on appeal, meaning most are not removable. She said roughly 7,000 Eritrean asylum applications were made in the last year of data, about 8% of the UK total, and that many young Eritreans leave the country, a one-party state with no independent media or elections since independence from Ethiopia in 1993, to avoid indefinite military conscription.