UK halts removal of Nepalese security guards who worked at British embassy in Kabul

Your support helps us to tell the story

Support Now

Find out moreClose

Our mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.

Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.

Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.

Louise Thomas

Editor

The British government has paused the deportation of a group of Nepalese security guards who worked at the British embassy in Kabul and were airlifted to the UK after the Taliban’s takeover.

The Home Office on Wednesday said the removal of the group has been paused for now.

The group of 13 Nepalese security guards faced the risk of deportation after 10 of them were detained by the police in an early morning raid on 27 March.

The Gurkha guards were arrested and taken to the immigration removal centres near Gatwick and Heathrow airports.

A Home Office spokesperson told Radio 4’s The World Tonight: "Removal of this cohort has been paused, pending further review."

Some of the men who were arrested last week were released from the detention centre on Wednesday.

The men, Nepalese and Indians, were living in a hotel in London following their rescue from Kabul after the Taliban took over in August 2021.

They were employed to guard officials in a high-security compound housing the UK and Canadian embassies in Kabul.

Some of the men were granted indefinite right to live in the UK by the Home Office while others were awaiting final decisions.

They were airlifted among 25,000 people who worked for the British military and the UK government in Afghanistan.

Jamie Bell of Duncan Lewis Solicitors, who is representing some of the men, welcomed the move by the Home Office but asked why they were detained in the first place.

He told Radio 4 that though he is “delighted for our clients that there won’t be pending removal" but said, “it raises the question about why this has happened to begin with”.

"Why couldn’t this review and consideration happen before there was significant media interest and before legal action had to be threatened?"