The interior ministry of Austria said it has deported 21 failed asylum seekers to Gambia and Nigeria late last week.
The ministry said the vast majority of the deportees had been drug dealers, though it is unclear how many among them were Gambians.
The deportation marks the seventh flight in 2018 to take back Nigerian and Gambian migrants from Austria under the authority of the Interior Ministry, which has been headed by populist anti-mass migration Freedom Party (FPÖ) Interior Minister Herbert Kickl since December, Kronen Zeitung reports.
However, the spokesperson of the Gambia Immigration Department, Mamanding S Dibba, told Kerr Fatou he has no knowledge of the deportation.
“I will share as soon as I get any confirmation,” said Dibba.
Meanwile, the Austrian authorities said 19 had all been convicted for drug offences, with several of them additionally being convicted of violent crimes as well.
Since April 1st, Austria has chartered 23 different flights to a total of twelve different countries including both Nigeria, Gambia and Azerbaijan earlier this month.
Around 45 percent of the 247 failed asylum seekers deported since April have been convicted of crimes, according to the Interior Ministry.
“We are doing everything we can to take criminal migrants out of the country as soon as possible,” Interior Minister Kickl commented.
According to the Austrian Federal Immigration and Asylum Service (BFA), Nigerians accounted for one of the top five countries for asylum applications in 2017 but also had one of the highest rejection rates.
Nigerian drug dealers have been problematic in the past in Austria, particularly in the capital of Vienna.
In 2016, Vienna police claimed that drug crime had increased by ten percent due to the inflow of Nigerian migrants, who made up as much as 80 percent of the criminal suspects in cases under the Narcotic Substances Act.
Source: Breitbart News Network
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