The Government's attempt to deport Darfuri asylum-seekers from the UK to refugee camps in Sudan was rejected today by the Court of Appeal.

In a ruling described as "a slap on the wrist" by campaigners, the judges blocked the removal of three Darfuri farmers to squatters' camps near the Sudanese capital, Sudan, describing their deportation as "unduly harsh".

Last week around, around 60 Darfuri asylum-seekers in the UK received letters calling them for appointments with the Home Office, where they were informed that they faced removal. A further two dozen African refugees, claiming to be Darfuris, are currently in detention awaiting deportation.

A total of around 1,000 Darfuris have sought refuge in the UK from the violence in western Sudan.

It was unclear whether today's ruling, which gave the farmers — identified only as AH, IG and NM — leave to appeal against the deportation orders of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, would immediately halt other planned removals. Although the deportation of one Darfuri, Mohammed Abdulhadi, was halted late on Monday night because of what the Home Office described as "fresh evidence" from Sudan.

In today's ruling, Lord Justice Buxton, sitting with Lords Justices Moore-Bick and Moses, said that reports of living conditions in the camps for Darfuri refugees in and around Khartoum made for "frightening reading". He said that there was no guarantee that the farmers, driven from their lands by marauding gangs of militia, would be able to support themselves economically.

More than 200,000 Darfuris, predominantly black African farmers, are believed to have died since becoming the targets of Arab janjaweed militias in late 2003. More than 2 million others have abandoned their homes as the armed groups, which are widely held to be sponsored by the Sudanese Government, have ethnically cleansed a region the size of France.

The Court of Appeal supported the farmers today not because of their claims that they would be persecuted on their return to Khartoum, although the judges did not rule out that possibility. Instead, the Lord Justices said that the Home Office could not have claimed to have met its international obligations for their welfare by sending them to the camps, many of which are currently being destroyed.

The court criticised the Home Office not supplying enough evidence about living conditions in Sudan and for basing its evidence on a limited selection of reports from the country.

“It is not only unedifying but also irrelevant to attempt to nuance accounts of life in the camps or to argue (on what was, at best, fragmentary evidence) that conditions are the same or similar elsewhere in Sudan,” said Lord Justice Buxton, who quashed the Home Secretary's decision to refuse asylum to the three men.

The Home Office said it would explore routes to challenge the decision, although the Court of Appeal blocked the Government from taking the case to the Law Lords.

“We believe that non-Arab Darfuris can safely live in Khartoum and we are disappointed that the Court of Appeal has overruled the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal’s decision that allowed this," said a spokeswoman

“The Border and Immigration Agency provides British protection to people at real risk of persecution. All applications for asylum, including those from Sudanese nationals, are examined with great care on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the latest country information and case law.”

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