JAMAICAN Prime Minister Andrew Holness is facing calls to block a deportation flight to the Caribbean island next week. 

About 20 Jamaican nationals have been rounded up and detained in recent weeks in preparation for a deportation flight on November 11, campaigners say. 

As Mr Holness addressed world leaders at the international climate conference in Glasgow on Monday, campaigners highlighted the environmental as well as human cost of deportations and urged him not to collaborate with Home Office removal operations. 

Anti-racism activist Zita Holbourne, a leading figure in the campaign to stop deportations, told the Morning Star: “They are contributing to the climate crisis in that way because the emissions of such a huge plane are being used to fly just a handful of people.”

An emergency protest against the flight will take place outside the Jamaican high commission in Kensington, central London, on Thursday. 

Campaign group Movement for Justice, which is supporting those booked on the flight, said that of the 11 detainees it had spoken to, eight came to Britain as children. 

Among them is Akeem Finlay, 31, who arrived at the age of 10 and has been subjected to five Home Office attempts to deport him, most recently in August, after he was convicted in 2011 of causing grievous bodily harm. 

The 31-year-old, who was interviewed by the Morning Star last summer, maintains that his life would be in danger in Jamaica, a country he fled after being stabbed by a gang at the age of nine. 

The same gang recently killed his cousin and threatened other family members. 

Nonetheless, Mr Finlay was detained again last Friday after the Home Office refused his claim for asylum.

“It’s like they want me to go back to Jamaica to prove my life was in danger,” Mr Finlay told the Morning Star by phone from Colnbrook immigration detention centre. 

“I showed them the death certificates of my cousin that passed away due to gang violence and the threats, and they are still trying to put me on the flight. I don’t know what way to go right now.”

The father of four said that he felt he was still being punished for his crime 11 years ago. 

“I just feel deprived of my human rights and my family life,” he added. 

This month’s charter flight is the Home Office’s third attempt in the past 12 months to deport dozens of Jamaican nationals, with officials claiming that those booked on the flight have committed serious and violent crimes. 

But previous flights have shown that many men earmarked for deportation have been convicted of one-off drug offences and some have been victims of trafficking.