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Top Democrat slams Trump officials’ ‘totally insufficient’ answers in closed-door briefing about Iran operation – as it happened

Closing summary This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but we will be back at it on Thursday. Here are the latest developments: In his first conference since the joint US-Israel operation against Iran, Donald Trump laid out his administration’s objectives moving forward. This includes destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, annihilating their navy, preventing Iran from ever having nuclear weapons, and ensuring the country “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”. Notably, the president did not urge the Iranian people to push back against their government – something he’s pushed for in recent weeks. The president said he predicted the war to last four-five weeks but the US has the “capability to go far longer”. Earlier, in a heated Penatgon press conference, Pete Hegseth initially said that US troops wouldn’t be in Iran, but later said he wouldn’t get into details. “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he said. “This is not Iraq. This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better, and so does this president.” US Central Command (Centcom) said that six service members have been killed in action, and eighteen have been seriously wounded in the US-Israel war on Iran. Secretary of state Marco Rubio, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA director John Ratcliffe, and Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff briefed senior congressional lawmakers on Operation Epic Fury. Before the briefing, Rubio said the United States attacked Iran “preemptively” to protect US forces from retaliation after learning that Israel was going to strike. After, Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Trump administration officials did not show that there was an imminent threat to the United States. “There was no imminent threat to the United States of America by the Iranians. There was a threat to Israel. If we equate a threat to Israel as an imminent threat to the United States, then we are in uncharted territory,” he said. The US state department is urging Americans to “depart now” from more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries, following the US-Israel strikes on Iran. Hundreds of thousands of travelers are currently stranded in the Gulf states, as the airspace over some of the world’s busiest airports, such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi, closed over the weekend. Kuwait air defences mistakenly shot down three US F-15 fighter jets flying in Iran-related operations, the US Central Command (Centcom) said on Monday. All six crew members ejected safely, were safely recovered and in stable condition. In an appeareance on Fox News this evening, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran’s “ballistic missile program and their atomic bomb program” would have been “immune within months” if the United States and Israel had not struck the country this weekend. Melania Trump became the first spouse of a sitting world leader to preside over the UN security council today. Speaking as the body held a meeting titled “Children, Technology and Education in Conflict”, Trump called on UN member states to protect children’s access to education. Over the weekend, Iranian state media reported that an airstrike killed at least 165 people at a girls’ school. The House oversight committee released the video footage of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s depositions, as part of lawmakers’ ongoing investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The former president and former secretary of state sat individually for closed-door testimony last week before the committee. Donald Trump will attend the White House Correspondents Dinner for the first time in either of his two terms in office. In 2017, Trump famously boycotted the dinner for the first time, and has not attended in any of the years since – notable because every president has attended the dinner at least once since the first one was held in 1921.

Some flights depart Middle East amid travel chaos as US urges its citizens to leave region

Travellers stranded by a widening war in the Middle East began departing the United Arab Emirates onboard a small number of evacuation flights on Monday, as governments around the world worked to extract their citizens from the region. Etihad Airways and Emirates, the airlines based in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, respectively, and the budget carrier FlyDubai said they would operate limited flights after the chaos and damaged caused by Iranian missiles and drones. Since Saturday, at least 11,000 flights into, out of and within the Middle East have been cancelled, affecting more than 1 million passengers, according to the aviation analytics firm Cirium. The travel chaos looks set to continue, with the US president, Donald Trump, saying on Monday that the conflict had been projected to last four to five weeks but that it could go on longer. Late on Monday the US state department called on Americans to immediately depart more than a dozen countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, amid the worsening conflict triggered by US-Israeli strikes against Iran on Saturday. Mora Namdar, the state department’s assistant secretary for consular affairs, said US citizens should leave using available commercial transportation “due to safety risks”. The US has not organised its own evacuation flights. In the UK, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, said the government was sending rapid deployment teams to the region to support British nationals there, and wanted “to ensure that they can return home as swiftly and safely as possible”. He told MPs: “We’re asking all British citizens in the region to register their presence so we can provide the best possible support and to monitor the Home Office travel advice, which is being regularly updated. Etihad Airways flight EY67, carrying stranded UK nationals, departed from Abu Dhabi on Monday afternoon and landed at Heathrow on Monday evening, according to the flight tracking company Flightradar24. The British foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, indicated that 102,000 British nationals had registered their presence in the region, and that a total of about 300,000 British citizens were in Gulf countries being targeted by Iran. Dubai’s government urged passengers on Monday to go to airports only if contacted directly, warning that operations remained limited. At least 16 Etihad flights left Abu Dhabi during a three-hour window on Monday, according to Flightradar24, heading to destinations including Islamabad, Paris, Amsterdam, Mumbai, Moscow and London. The airline’s website, however, said all its regularly scheduled commercial flights remained suspended until Wednesday afternoon. Emirates said customers with earlier bookings would get priority for seats onboard the limited flights it planned to operate starting Monday evening. FlyDubai said it would operate four flights departing the city and another five arriving planes on Monday, adding that schedules could quickly change as the situation evolved. The select departures brought some relief but did not indicate a return to business as usual. Airspace closures remained in effect for Iran, Iraq and Israel, and Jordan instituted one starting Monday and lasting overnight. Total or partial closures in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Syria were set to expire on Monday but could be expanded, according to Flightradar24. Even when the restrictions are lifted, commercial flights may not immediately resume. Airlines that operate evacuation flights are doing so with government backing, and the carriers’ home countries may be assuming part of the financial risk, said Henry Harteveldt, the president of travel market research firm Atmosphere Research Group. “If the countries reopen their airspace, that certainly is helpful,” Harteveldt said. “But airlines aren’t going to resume operations until they are fully confident that there is a zero – or as close as possible to zero – risk that their aircraft will be attacked.” The Philippines upgraded its travel advisory on Monday for the United Arab Emirates, placing it – along with Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia – at a level that automatically triggers a deployment ban on newly hired Filipino workers, the country’s foreign affairs department said. Indonesia said more than 58,000 of its citizens were stranded in Saudi Arabia, where they were visiting Islam’s holy sites in Mecca and Medina during Ramadan. “It has become an urgent humanitarian and logistical issue,” said Ichsan Marsha, spokesperson for Indonesia’s Ministry of Hajj and Umrah, which was coordinating with the Saudi authorities, airlines and Indonesian travel operators to arrange alternative routes or rescheduled flights. Germany’s foreign ministry said about 30,000 German tourists were stranded on cruise ships, in hotels or at closed airports in the Middle East. The government said it plans to send aircraft to Oman and Saudi Arabia to evacuate ill travellers, children and pregnant people while working with airlines to assist others. About 2,000 South Koreans are stranded in Dubai, a South Korean lawmaker said on Tuesday. Kim Young-bae of the ruling Democratic party said the foreign ministry was working to secure their return. The Czech Republic said it was sending several planes to Egypt, Jordan and Oman to bring home citizens from Israel and surrounding countries. Leela Rao, a 29-year-old law student at Georgetown University in Washington, made it on to one of Monday’s Etihad flights. She said she learned of the airstrikes while waiting to make a connection in Abu Dhabi on Saturday and spent hours at the airport following news updates, hearing explosions and receiving shelter-in-place alerts before the airline arranged a hotel stay in Dubai. “I am feeling so, so, so grateful,” Rao said via text message after arriving in Delhi in time for a friend’s wedding. “Everyone clapped when we landed.” Associated Press, Press Association and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

China’s Two Sessions to reveal Xi’s economic and defence plans as military purge casts shadow

Thousands of delegates will arrive in Beijing this week for China’s annual Two Sessions, one of the most important events in the country’s political calendar and a rare opportunity for the global media to see Beijing’s top lawmakers up close. The Two Sessions” are concurrent gatherings of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body. Of the two gatherings, the NPC, China’s legislature, is more important. It has the power to amend the constitution, appoint people to political offices, enact laws and approve the budget. In 2018 it was at the NPC that amended China’s constitution to scrap term limits for the president, and in 2023 it was the NPC that subsequently elected Xi Jinping to that office for an unprecedented third term. However, in modern China, the Chinese Communist party (CCP) is more powerful than any organ of the state, and the NPC is in effect a rubber-stamp parliament, having never voted down any item on its agenda. The real decision-making is done by the CCP at separate meetings. Still, the opening of the CPPCC on Wednesday and the NPC on Thursday will be full of pomp and circumstance.The NPC is the forum in which the government releases its annual work report, outlining goals for the year ahead, including the GDP growth target, which this year is expected to drop below 5% for the first time. But this year’s session is also particularly important because it marks the official launch of the 15th five-year plan, the economic planning document that outlines Beijing’s priorities for 2026-2030. “This is going to be an unusually busy Two Sessions,” says Ruby Osman, a senior policy adviser at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. “The Two Sessions usually tell us what Beijing wants to do over the next 12 months. This year, they’ll also set out a much bigger strategy for navigating a decisive period of geopolitical and technological change,” she says. Osman added that there is likely to be a “mismatch” in the priorities of the annual government work report and the longer term goals of the five-year plan, which “will make clear that Beijing sees innovative capacity – and the ability to shield itself from US pressures – as China’s real structural challenge”. The 2026-2030 window is a key time frame for China’s strategic goals. Xi wants the military to be capable of a successful assault on Taiwan by 2027, and needs an economy that is self-sufficient and resilient against potential sanctions to support that scenario. Taiwan is a self-governing island that Beijing claims as part of its territory, and it has not ruled out the use of force to “reunify” it with the CCP-ruled People’s Republic of China. To that end, the 15th five-year plan is expected to focus on industrial self-reliance. China wants to boost its ability to domestically produce the most advanced semiconductors, blunting the force of US sanctions designed to hold back China’s technological progress, particularly when it comes to artificial intelligence and military applications. But the spectre of recent high-level purges in the military will loom over any defence strategies. Xi recently placed his top general, Zhang Youxia, under investigation for suspected corruption, a highly unusual move that was made after years of increasing turmoil in the world’s biggest armed forces. A recent paper published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, found that more than 100 senior officers have been purged or potentially purged since 2022, a tally that researchers have described as “staggering”. On Thursday, the NPC’s leadership body announced that it had revoked the NPC membership of nine military delegates, without providing reasons for the expulsions, according to a report published by Xinhua news agency. “Xi’s military purges will leave empty seats where senior officers once sat – a stark reminder that political loyalty is non-negotiable and that even top generals are expendable if they displease the top leader,” says Neil Thomas, a fellow on Chinese politics at the Asia Society thinktank. Outside of political intrigue, this year’s Two Sessions will reveal a number of economic indicators for the year ahead. The most important is the annual GDP growth target, which is expected to be about 4.5% this year, the first time that it has ever dropped below 5%. Analysts say that this reflects a shift in Beijing’s priorities towards technological self-reliance even if it comes at the expense of rapid growth. That may be suited to what Beijing considers an uncertain geopolitical future, particularly with regards to the US. But China’s domestic problems, such as high levels of youth unemployment and an ageing society, will not be cured by a doubling down on niche, specialist sectors, while major other parts of the economy, such as real estate, continue to flail.

Ukraine war briefing: Russia’s army records slowest advance since 2024 amid Starlink cut, data shows

Russia’s army recorded its slowest advance on the frontline in Ukraine in nearly two years in February, an analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War showed, as Kyiv’s troops scored several localised breakthroughs. The slowdown came as Moscow’s forces at the front struggled after Elon Musk cut the Russians’ access to Starlink internet terminals. Russia advanced by a total of 123 sq kilometres (48 sq miles) – the lowest since April 2024 – during the month, according to the analysis conducted by Agence France-Presse. Ukrainian troops managed several localised advances during February, the data showed, including a 61 sq-kilometre gain on 15 February, and gains of more than 50 sq kilometres on 21 February and 23 February. Kyiv’s forces saw most success along the southern frontline, pushing Russia’s army back in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Moscow, meanwhile, has been grinding forward in the east, moving closer towards the key hubs of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Russia occupies just over 19% of Ukraine. Russia’s Sheskharis oil terminal suspended oil loadings on Monday following a Ukrainian drone attack that injured five, damaged 20 buildings and set a fuel terminal on fire, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials and three trade sources. The Sheskharis oil terminal in Novorossiysk is Russia’s major oil outlet in the Black Sea, loading 700,000 barrels per day of crude oil. An official at Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said Ukrainian drones had struck the terminal at the port, hitting six of its seven loading facilities, and that the drones also struck Russian warships. Ukraine’s general staff said the drones also struck a naval base, along with an S-400 surface-to-air missile defence system. Russia made no mention of any damage to its military assets. Reuters could not independently verify what Ukraine had struck. US-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine expected later this week may take place in Switzerland or Turkey if a planned meeting in Abu Dhabi is not possible due to the war in the Middle East, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Monday. He also noted that western countries have given no indication so far that their delivery to Kyiv of vital air defence missiles could be disrupted by commitments to Middle East defence. Peace talks have appeared deadlocked in recent weeks over Russia’s insistence that Ukraine hand over the remaining part of its eastern Donbas region which Moscow does not control. Russian strikes killed at least eight people in Ukraine including during an attack on a civilian passenger train, Ukrainian authorities said on Monday. Three people were killed in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, a Ukrainian stronghold that Russian forces are advancing towards, officials said. The head of the wider Donetsk region said two people were killed and 13 wounded in Druzhkivka. Slovakia wants to initiate a meeting with the EU commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and ideally together with Ukraine and Hungary, to get oil flows along the Druzhba pipeline restarted as quickly as possible, the Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, said on Monday. Slovakia and Hungary have blamed Ukraine for dragging its feet on restarting supplies of Russian crude through the pipeline, although Kyiv says repairs take time after what it said was a Russian attack on pumping stations in western Ukraine in late January. “This has now become a European-Ukrainian problem and Europe must decide on which side it stands,” Fico said. Ukraine will complete the technical work needed to open negotiations on all topics for its EU accession process within days, Zelenskyy said on Monday. Zelenskyy urged the EU to agree on a firm date for Ukraine to join the bloc, saying that would provide an important guarantee of the country’s future security. “We are ready, but not all leaders of the European Union are … I mean, not everyone is ready to give Ukraine this opportunity,” Zelenskyy said. Ukraine became a formal EU candidate country in the early days after Russia’s invasion in February 2022. But so far, Kyiv’s progress through the existing EU process has been held up by Hungary, which has blocked the unanimous approval required to open formally each of the six so-called accession “clusters” of issues to be resolved.

‘We’ll run out of food this week’: Israel’s Iran war brings new Gaza siege

Israel closed all crossings into Gaza indefinitely when it attacked Iran, imposing a siege that has already pushed up food prices and threatens to plunge 2 million people into a new hunger crisis. After more than two years of war, and with Israeli forces in control of about 60% of the territory, almost all of Gaza’s food must be brought in. Humanitarian groups feeding much of the population say the supplies they had on Saturday, when the war began, will only last a few more days. “If [the borders] stay closed, World Central Kitchen will run out of food this week,” said the organisation’s founder and chief, José Andrés, in a post on social media. “We are cooking 1m hot meals every day. We need food deliveries every single day.” One international food security expert said there was just a week’s supply of fresh food in Gaza. Community bakeries that supply some of the most vulnerable people have only enough flour for about 10 days of bread, and there are about two weeks’ supply of aid parcels. Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza last spring followed by extreme restrictions on food shipments. Together they caused a famine last summer. Hundreds of people were also killed trying to reach the food distribution points of a new logistics organisation, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which only operated in Israeli-controlled areas. As news of Israel’s attack on Iran spread, Palestinians haunted by memories of famine and other periods of extreme hunger raced out to buy supplies, pushing up prices. The price of a 25kg sack of flour has tripled to between 80 and 100 shekels, from about 30 shekels last week. Other essentials including sugar, nappies and cooking oil have doubled. “The return of famine to Gaza is what we fear most, even more than the shelling,” said Sobhi Al-Zaaneen, a 50-year-old father of seven, originally from northern Gaza. He had decided to stock up on more food despite the cost. “I’m now on my way to the market to buy what we need before prices increase further.” Many in Gaza do not have funds to stock up, after losing their homes and jobs in the war, and running through any savings to survive. “I don’t have enough money to buy and store food before prices increase, as some others have done,” said Um Mohammed Hijazi, a 49-year-old mother of five. The family home was destroyed in the war and they were displaced five times. “Thank God, I have a small food supply from aid we received from relief organisations, which may be enough for a few days if the crossings remain closed.” Some staples are harder to find than a week ago, and Hijazi said she heard some traders had put their goods into storage, hoping to profit from further price rises. As the occupying power in Gaza, Israel has a legal responsibility to ensure there is sufficient food for civilians there. That obligation is not affected by the war with Iran, said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “Community kitchens are already closing, and prices for basic goods have started to rise,” he said in a post on X. “Even amid a widening regional war, international humanitarian law still requires Israel to facilitate relief for civilians under its control.” The Israeli authority that controls aid and commercial flows into Gaza, Cogat, said it halted shipments into Gaza for security reasons amid the war with Iran. Late on Monday, the organisation said it would reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing on Tuesday for the gradual entry of humanitarian aid. Israel has kept border crossings with Jordan and Egypt open, and the food logistics chain inside the country is still operating. The Cogat spokesperson said there was adequate food in Gaza, but declined to give any statistics. “Existing stockpiles inside Gaza are expected to suffice for a while,” the statement said. Gaza shares a border with Egypt, which has been closed for aid since Israeli forces took control of the area in May 2024. The Cogat spokesperson did not respond to questions about why that had not been opened to aid shipments. Palestinians and international humanitarian organisations have warned for months that essential goods including food are in short supply despite the ceasefire. UN-backed experts said in December that nearly four in five Palestinians in Gaza faced acute food insecurity. An erratic system of Israeli controls and the destruction of warehouses means there are not enough food supplies inside Gaza to cushion the impact of border crossings, said Bahaa Al-Amawi, secretary of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of North Gaza. “Since the beginning of the ceasefire, there has been no strategic stockpile, and we are unable to establish one under the current conditions,” he said. “This means that as soon as a closure is announced, it triggers a psychological crisis for many citizens due to their previous experience with famine, alongside a real commercial crisis caused by the absence of stock reserves. The market reacts quickly.” Alaa Abu Rakba, 43, has been supporting his wife and four children selling meat from a small kiosk set up outside his tent. Their home was destroyed in the war. His business was effectively cut off overnight, but he immediately went out to buy up basic supplies like sugar, flour and oil. “We learned our lesson from the first time,” he said. “I would rather the war and shelling return than see the crossings closed, because I do not want to live through a famine again or find myself unable to provide food for my children for days.”

‘It was surreal’: holidaymakers on first flight out of Abu Dhabi describe petrifying experience

Holidaymakers on the first flights out of Abu Dhabi since Saturday have described their experiences up close as conflict erupted between Iran and its Gulf neighbours. With thousands of flights cancelled across the Middle East, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded, the UK has begun forming evacuation plans for some of the estimated 300,000 Britons in the region. While these plans form, a small number of flights have found their way out of the United Arab Emirates, including EY067, which landed at Heathrow just after 7pm on Monday. As passengers came through arrivals 45 minutes later, they described their fear as missiles flew overhead. “We could hear the explosions. We could sometimes feel them … and then [there was] black ash landing in the breakfast,” said Pen Harrison, part of a group of friends undertaking a cycling tour in Sri Lanka, who had been on a stopover in Abu Dhabi. Sahib Matharu, 31, from London, who was also on a stopover through Abu Dhabi, said: “We were on edge the whole time. It was surreal. “On the plane, just as we were about to leave, we were looking at the news, seeing there’s been another strike, and thinking – are they going to let us leave? It was that level of uncertainty.” Every passenger on the flight who spoke to the Guardian reported seeing missile interceptions from their hotel. After two nights, the passengers received a text from the airline. They had just minutes to get downstairs and travel to the airport. Laura and Nikki, the mothers of 19-year-olds Lila and Ross respectively, were shocked as they learned what was happening. Their children were on holiday in Thailand, only expecting to be in Abu Dhabi for an hour-long stopover. “It’s petrifying,” said Laura. “They’re 19, they shouldn’t have to go through that. They didn’t know when they were getting home.” Nikki added: “It just makes you realise how volatile the area can be.” The UAE government was quick to issue warning texts to people in the area, which reassured many British holidaymakers about their situation. One message told them to stay away from windows, which couple Ed and Jane from Coventry understood when they got to Abu Dhabi’s airport and saw the shattered glass. “It’s put me off going for quite a while,” said Jane. The couple were relieved to not be in Dubai, where they normally holiday. There the damage was even worse, with missiles hitting sites such as the Jebel Ali port area, and the Burj Al Arab, widely regarded as Dubai’s most recognisable landmark. At least three people have been reported dead by the UAE after these attacks. It remains unclear whether Iran was directly targeting hotels and other landmarks. With the exception of this flight, airspace over Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Israel, Bahrain, the UAE and Qatar was still virtually empty as of Monday, according to the flight tracking website Flightradar24. The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, told UK media that 102,000 British citizens had registered their presence in the UAE, with 300,000 total living in Gulf countries. “We didn’t get much support from the UK government” said Dave Richards, from Winchester. But he and other tourists said it was easy to register their presence, and were impressed with the airline’s organisation in getting them out. “Everyone handled it really well, so we can’t grumble,” said Tom and Jeanette Bird. “Some people were panicked, and some people weren’t batting an eyelid. A very British attitude,” said Amanda Dawson from Worcestershire. Right now, thousands of Britons remain stranded, with no clear picture of the government’s evacuation plans.

Mahmood’s move to make asylum temporary ‘may undermine refugee convention’

Shabana Mahmood’s decision to tell every person applying for asylum from Monday that their status is temporary could undermine the refugee convention, the Law Society has said. The body representing solicitors in England and Wales said the home secretary’s move to review every refugee’s status after 30 months was “in tension” with the UK’s legal obligations. Keir Starmer’s government is preparing to announce a series of hardline policies that are meant to deter people from travelling to the UK to claim asylum. Mahmood, who is closely associated with the Blue Labour wing of her party, has faced a backlash from MPs, peers and affiliated unions for pressing on with the policies after Labour came third in last week’s Gorton and Denton byelection. From Monday, refugees will need to get renewed permission to stay or apply for a visa route like any other authorised immigrant, including paying associated fees. The policy shift is modelled on Denmark’s strict system. The Law Society of England and Wales’s president, Mark Evans, said: “The rules announced today will create prolonged uncertainty for people who want to live free from danger and have been recognised by the government as needing protection. “The changes stand in tension with article 34 of the refugee convention, under which the UK has agreed to facilitate as far as possible the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees.” Article 34 of the convention, which was signed by the UK in 1951, reads: “The contracting states shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees. “They shall in particular make every effort to expedite naturalisation proceedings and to reduce as far as possible the charges and costs of such proceedings.” Organisations working closely with refugees have expressed concern at the proposals, saying they will re-traumatise people who have come to the UK from war zones and suffered torture. Sophie McCann, the forced displacement and protection advocacy adviser at Médecins Sans Frontières UK, said the decision was “another cruel development that will harm people who have fled the horrors of conflict, violence and persecution”. She added: “Embedding prolonged uncertainty and fear within the asylum system will create further psychological harm and inhibit refugees’ – including our patients’ – ability to heal from their experiences and rebuild their lives with dignity.” Natasha Tsangarides, an associate director at Freedom from Torture, said: “This policy change will affect men, women and children who have been recognised by our government as needing protection from torture and war. “They have fled countries like Iran and Sudan for standing up for the same freedoms we cherish in Britain. “A grant of refugee status should be a moment of celebration – a gateway to a new life and the chance to put the horrors they have endured behind them. Now, they will have to relive that trauma every 30 months.” A Home Office spokesperson said: “We will always provide sanctuary to those fleeing war and persecution, but we must also ensure our asylum system is not creating pull factors that draw people on dangerous journeys across the world. “Our approach remains in line with our international obligations and will encourage those who want to build a life in the UK to do so via safe and legal routes.”