Protesters in the UK have attempted to stop the London police from removing migrants sheltered at a temporary accommodation.

On Friday, pro-migrant protesters gathered to prevent or delay the migrants’ removal from their temporary accommodation in southern London, reportedly to the Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset.

Dozens of protesters wearing face masks blocked a migrants’ coach outside the Best Western Hotel in Peckham, south London.

They said they would “find any way to stop the coach from moving, whatever that looks like”. Reports said the protesters had placed their bicycles in front of the bus’ wheels and even slashed one coach’s tire.

“What we’ve done is we’ve surrounded the vehicle, stopped it from moving, so we’re not letting it go until we get confirmation from the Home Office that the remaining asylum seekers who are due to go on the bus, their removal has been canceled,” said one protest organizer.

“We’ve got hundreds of people from the local community here, we’ve surrounded the bus and we’re keeping it here until we get confirmation. 

“We’ve found out this bus was due to go to a number of hotels to pick up other refugees to put them on the barge, so us delaying this coach helps those people.”

In the meantime, the UK government has booked an unspecified number of flights for the deportation migrants to Rwanda under its new immigration policy.

In this regard, a Home Office spokesman criticized the pro-migrant protesters’ move, saying the migrants’ removals had been announced on Wednesday.

“This behavior is intimidatory and aggressive. As part of our commitment to significantly reducing the use of hotels, asylum seekers are being moved into alternative accommodations to reduce costs on the taxpayer.

“We have returned 150 hotels to local communities and we work closely with accommodation providers to manage the exit process in a way that limits the impact on local authorities and asylum seekers.”

The UK government’s announcement of the migrants’ removal followed last month’s parliamentary passage of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship immigration law, which forces asylum-seekers who arrive in Britain “illegally” after 1 January 2022, from a safe country such as France, to be deported to so-called safe third countries, particularly Rwanda.

The British government made arrangement with the Rwandan government to have the migrants’ requests for asylum to be processed there, rather than in the UK.

If accepted, the migrants would be granted refugee status and allowed to stay in the landlocked east-central African country. If not, they could apply to settle in Rwanda on other grounds, or seek asylum in another “safe third country”. In any case, they would be able to apply to return to the UK.

British government ministers say the Rwanda plan will stop migrants from arriving in the UK.

Every year tens of thousands of migrants arrive in the UK in search of a better life. In 2023, the largest number of UK asylum seekers came from Afghanistan (9,307), followed by Iran, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Since the 19th century, the British have played a significant role in the political developments in the aforementioned countries, fostering internal conflicts and border disputes rooted in race, religion and language between neighboring states as a means to divide and rule.

Many scholars, historians and political scientists link the hardships felt by some of the people in these countries to the UK’s past and present foreign policies.