The UK Home Office has been ordered to bring five-year-old
Rafeeq Atanda and his mum back to the UK after they were deported to
Nigeria earlier this year.
In January, the government decided to deport them despite a high-profile case. The boy was born in the UK, but spent his last week in the country held in a London immigration center with his mother before they were deported.
According to Reuters' reportage, a court ruled that the
government must find Bola Fatumbi and her son Rafeeq Atanda by Thursday
and bring them back to the UK or it will face contempt of court
proceedings.
It is believed to be the first time that an immigration
judge has ordered the government to retrieve asylum-seekers previously
deported from the UK.
“In not taking into account the implications of Bola
Fatumbi’s mental health for Rafeeq Atanda, and the risk of that
degenerating in the Nigerian context and the likely consequences of
removal, the Secretary of State failed to have regard for Rafeeq
Atanda’s best interests as a primary consideration,” the judge said.
Justice Cranston said the boy’s best interests and the
mother’s poor health were not taken into account and the family could be
forced into poverty in Africa.
It would be recalled that Rafeeq's mother, Bola Fatumbi,
45, who was once sentenced to nine months in prison in October 2008 for
using a false Dutch passport, claimed to have been in the UK illegally
since 1991 and applied for asylum in 2010, because she feared
persecution and discrimination as a single mother in Nigeria with no
immediate family. Her asylum application and appeal were rejected and
she was forcefully deported to Nigeria in January 2015 with her
5-Year-Old son, Rafeeq.
Now, fate has smiled on them and in a very rare occurrence,
the government has been ordered to find them and return them back to
the UK.
1 comment:
Wow! God has answered atlast
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