The Swiss voice in the world since 1935

Swiss parliament agrees not to deport Eritreans to third country

Eritreans
The number of Eritreans seeking asylum in Switzerland has dropped, going from 9,950 applications in 2015 to just 1,830 in 2022. © Keystone / Anthony Anex

Switzerland will not deport Eritreans with rejected asylum applications to a third country such as Rwanda. On Tuesday, the House of Representatives rejected a motion calling for a pilot project for such deportations.

The motion was originally put forward by Damian Müller, a member of the centre-right Radical-Liberal party, and approved by the Senate in June.

Müller had justified the motion with the statement that it was about people who had undergone an asylum procedure in Switzerland, had received a negative decision and did not need international protection. They were occupying places that were needed by refugees who required protection.

+ What was behind recent clashes between Eritreans in Switzerland?

Justice Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider countered these statements in the House on Tuesday, arguing that Switzerland lacked the legal basis for such a project. The House voted against the motion by 96 votes to 91 with 6 abstentions.

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
Daily news

Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox.

Daily

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.

Most Read
Swiss Abroad

Most Discussed

News

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR