Legal bids mean UK deportation flight to Zimbabwe takes off just one-third full

Multiple challenges, as well as Covid self-isolation, result in only 14 of people being on board, it is believed

A controversial Home Office deportation charter flight to Zimbabwe took off at about 10.30pm on Wednesday evening with only around one-third of the passengers on board that officials had hoped to remove.

It is the first mass deportation flight to Zimbabwe for many years and marks the start of a planned summer season' of charter flight deportations to countries including Vietnam and Jamaica that the Home Office is planning in the coming weeks.