Afghans lodge last-minute EU appeal, hours before deportation from France

AFP - A group of Afghan nationals about to be deported from France have lodged a last-minute appeal, the European Court of Human Rights said on Tuesday.

The court said it had not yet made a decision on the 12 Afghans' appeals, received on Monday.

The appeals came shortly before the Afghans were to be put on board flights out of France, the court said.

Human rights groups called for the French and British authorities to cancel a charter flight to Kabul they said had been organised for Tuesday evening.

On October 5 the court suspended a deportation order for seven Afghans held in the western French city of Rouen.

They argued they were at risk of torture or degrading treatment if they were sent back to Afghanistan.

The court asked the French authorities to delay repatriation while the claims were investigated.

Last month French riot police detained scores of mostly Afghan migrants, many of them minors, in the northern port of Calais when they bulldozed a makeshift camp called the "jungle" that was used as a base to cross the Channel to Britain.

French Immigration Minister Eric Besson told Le Monde newspaper on October 5 that charter flights would be used to deport failed asylum seekers, but the plan has been criticised by human rights groups and the socialist opposition.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the EU's justice commissioner have said the priority should not be to round up migrants but offer them full and fair asylum rights across the European Union.