Home Office cancels flight to deport Kurdish failed asylum seekers to Iraq

The Home Office had planned to deport dozens of Kurdish asylum seekers to Irbil in northern Iraq. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

The Home Office has cancelled a chartered deportation flight to Iraq that was due to depart from the UK on Tuesday evening.

Up to 30 Kurdish people who have been refused asylum were facing deportation to northern Iraq in the first flight of its kind for a decade.