A handful of illegal migrants, whom the British government wanted to fly to Rwanda to process their asylum petitions, have been saved from deportation at the last moment. An injunction issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) kept their flight on the ground on Tuesday.
The takeoff was canceled while the plane’s engines were already running, Reuters reported. The aircraft was supposed to take eight migrants to Africa in what would have been the first flight of this kind. Initially, Britain wanted to haul some 30 people to Rwanda in a pilot run.
The interim measure was applied in relation to a single case involving an Iraqi man, whose application for asylum was deemed inadmissible by the British authorities and whose case is under review by the UK High Court.
The European court said there were concerns that he “will not have access to fair and efficient procedures for the determination of refugee status” in Rwanda. It also cited the questionable status of the African country as a safe place and its non-participation in the European Convention on Human Rights as reasons for the injunction.