The Home Office has confirmed that a record number of Nigerians and Ghanaians were deported to their home countries on a single flight, with 44 individuals forcibly removed on Friday, October 18.

The Home Office said that the Nigeria and Ghana deportations were part of a “major surge” in immigration enforcement and returns, according to the Guardian UK.

Since Labour came to power in July 3,600 people have been returned to various countries, including about 200 to Brazil and 46 on a flight to Vietnam and Timor Leste.

There are also regular deportation flights to Albania, Lithuania and Romania.

Deportation flights to Nigeria and Ghana are relatively rare, with just four recorded since 2020, according to data released under freedom of information rules.

The previous flights had far fewer people onboard, with six, seven, 16 and 21 respectively. Friday’s flight had more than double that number removed on a single flight.

The deportation came as news emerged that any asylum seekers who arrive in Diego Garcia before a treaty between the UK and Mauritius to hand back the Chagos Islands is finalised will be sent to Saint Helena, a British territory in the Atlantic Ocean, described as one of the most remote places on Earth.

One of four Nigerians who spoke with the Guardian while they were held at Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatwick before their deportation tried to kill himself.

His cellmate, who witnessed the attempt, said he was “very traumatised” by what he had seen.

A second man said: “I’ve been in the UK for 15 years as an asylum seeker. I have no criminal record but the Home Office has refused my claim.”

Fizza Qureshi, the CEO of Migrants’ Rights Network, who was in contact with some of the people on the Nigeria/Ghana deportation flight before they left the UK, said: “We are extremely shocked at the cruelty of these deportations, especially with the speed, secrecy and the lack of access to legal support. In the words of one detainee we spoke to before he was put on the flight: ‘The Home Office is playing politics with people’s lives. We have not done anything wrong other than cry for help.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We have already begun delivering a major surge in immigration enforcement and returns activity to remove people with no right to be in the UK and ensure the rules are respected and enforced, with over 3,600 returned in the first two months of the new government.”