THE “inhumane” treatment of detainees in the hours leading up to the cancelled Rwanda flight was described as “torture” by lawyers and campaigners today.

Asylum-seekers who had been due to be deported to the east African country on Tuesday night were put in restraints, handcuffed and dragged onto the plane before it was ultimately grounded. 

Campaigners who were on the phone to detainees in those desperate hours told the Morning Star that while the asylum-seekers have been spared deportation for now, the trauma of that night will stay with them for the “rest of their lives.”