THE Home Office has defended its decision to begin forcibly returning failed Iraqi asylum-seekers even though the country is still suffering from insurgency.

Scores of Iraqis have been taken to detention centres in the past week and the first are expected to be sent back within days.

The Home Office acknowledged that the first of the forced repatriations was imminent, and refugee groups believe they could begin today.

Whitehall was accused last night of trying to kick out the detainees in secret to avoid criticism. Ministers had to back down over deporting Zimbabwean asylum-seekers this summer after protests by MPs, church leaders, civil liberties groups and the intervention of the High Court.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that Britain had not given notification of the move, and it described the expulsions as wrong. UN officials are hoping to meet Home Office ministers to try to halt the removals.

Tim Finch, director of communications at the Refugee Council, said: “Nobody in Whitehall can surely claim that it is perfectly safe to send anyone back to anywhere in Iraq at the moment. I fear this is just another clumsy case of the Home Office trying to reach its target on forced removals of failed asylum-seekers and trying to do it in secret.”

The Refugee Council believed that 43 Iraqis had been arrested by the end of last week. Last night officials said that the figure had grown to well over 100. Mr Finch said: “It was only when Iraqi families and community leaders began contacting us in panic that we discovered what was going on.”

Many of those picked up are Kurds who fled the repression of Saddam Hussein’s regime and have been in Britain with their families for years. Most are understood to be single men. The Home Office said that illegal migrants would be returned only to areas that were considered safe.

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