The Belgian government faces widespread criticism after it invited officials from the brutal Sudanese dictatorship to Brussels to identify migrants and provide documents for their forced return to the country.

Opposition politicians and groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty warned the Sudanese identification team are likely to be secret police seeking political opponents and accused the government of collaboration with the regime.

Illegal migrants would be given repatriation papers, according to Theo Francken, Belgium’s asylum and migration minister, but campaigners said it was very likely that genuine refugees would be faced with their oppressors.

Mr Francken defended his invitation to inspect about 100 migrants. He said Belgium’s intelligence services had screened the three officials, who arrived in Brussels on Monday, to make sure they were not secret agents.

Mr Francken, a flamboyant Flemish nationalist is notorious for his hard-line views on immigration, added: “We are doing what many other European countries do with African countries. It is not exceptional to do this with Sudan.”

Some reports claim that the refugees, many of whom were recently arrested camping in Brussels’ Maximilian Park, were on their way to Britain. While some of that number could be illegal migrants, others could be genuine asylum seekers and refugees.