Surgeon who fled to UK as child slams Government's plan to send refugees to Rwanda

Waheed Arian’s earliest memories are of bombs and he fled war-torn Afghanistan as a teenager to start a new life in the UK. He is now a surgeon with the Shrewsbury & Telford Hospitals NHS Trust.

"This is not the way to treat humans," said Dr Arian, who spent much of his childhood in refugee camps in Pakistan, living sometimes 10 to a room without basic sanitation or access to education.

"We are re-traumatising, we are de-humanising and we are criminalising them."

Earlier this week the Government announced what it calls a migration and economic partnership with the African state of Rwanda, to "help tackle dangerous small boats crossings across the Channel and to protect our borders". It has a £120million price tag.

Ludlow MP Philip Dunne defended the policy as one that "sends a strong signal to those prepared to risk this illegal and dangerous route, as well as those who seek to profiteer from such desperation, that it does not result in access to refugee status in the UK".

But Dr Arian said it would not deter desperate people from trying to make the journey.

"It won't make any difference," he told BBC Breakfast News. "They have spent months and years fleeing from conflict, fleeing from persecution.

"They have risked their lives. There is a reason for it, because they want safety, they want to start a new life."

Dr Arian proposed treating people humanely and offering a helping hand.

The Government plans to also introduce new measures to intercept more small boats crossing the Channel, while asylum seekers will be sent to Rwanda to have their claims processed, as well as use of more closed asylum centres in the UK.

Mr Dunne said: “The UK has a generous process for giving asylum, and we welcome thousands of people each year through safe and legal routes.

"But we cannot allow an illegal system to run in parallel, so we must also have a robust system to deal with those economic migrants who pay people smugglers to enter the country illegally.

He added: "Unfortunately, we have seen the flow of people trafficking cramming economic migrants, mostly single men, onto small boats and sending them off across the Channel, continue to grow.

"These are people who can afford to pay the smugglers, and leave the safety of France, to come to the UK."

Dr Arian came to the UK at 15 and was told he should become a taxi driver. But he had bigger ambitions.

Against the odds, he was accepted to read medicine at Cambridge University, Imperial College and Harvard, and went on to become a doctor in the NHS. But he wanted to do more.

In 2015 he founded Arian Teleheal, a global charity that connects doctors in war zones and low-resource countries with their counterparts in the US, UK, Europe and Australia. Together, learning from each other, they save and change lives.

Dr Arian spoke up last year as Prime Minister Boris Johnson was unveiling a resettlement scheme to allow fleeing Afghans to set up home in Britain.

Dr Arian fled Afghanistan in 1999 after the Taliban seized control across the nation in a violent conflict, which left thousands of citizens dead or severely injured.

Dr Arian, who lives in Chester with his wife and two children, said the recent conflicts have affected him emotionally, causing nightmares and cold sweats, and he has been in regular contact with his relatives who remained in Kabul.

He said: “There are many people in Afghanistan and in many other conflicts whose lives are at risk. They need to be given safety, they need to be shown compassion.

“When these refugees land anywhere in the world, they shouldn’t be criminalised, they shouldn’t be dehumanised, they should be treated just as humans.

“I was one of those refugees when I came here in 1999, with hope for safety and a dream to become a doctor. I was given safety, I was shown compassion.”