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UK: Deportation of suicidal Kurdish
teenager halted
23.11.2007
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November
23, 2007
The planned removal from the UK of a suicidal
Kurdish teenager whose traumatic experience of the
British deportation process drove her to self-harm
appeared to have been scrapped yesterday.
A German border police source confirmed that a
private jet carrying Meltem Avcil and her mother had
been expected to arrive in Dusseldorf at 9.55am
yesterday, but officials from Britain had called to
cancel the flight earlier in the morning.
The Independent reported earlier this week that
14-year-old Meltem was left depressed and
traumatised by an extended stay at Yarl's Wood
detention centre. Further details of the extent of
her depression, though, can now be revealed. Meltem
had cut her wrists and entered into a suicide pact
with a fellow detainee.
The removal flight was cancelled shortly after a
private visit by the Children's Commissioner, Sir
Albert Aynsley-Green, was scheduled. The Children's
Commissioner spent half an hour with Meltem in a
private room at Bedford hospital yesterday morning.
Meltem was moved to Bedford from Yarl's Wood after a
visiting doctor discovered her medical record. The
doctor concluded that said that the young detainee
"urgently required assessment by a child
psychiatrist". According to the doctor, the girl's
depression was evident. Meltem told her: "In here
I'm like a dead person", and that "it's all down
from here".
The doctor also saw scars on Meltem's wrists where
she had attempted to cut herself. When asked why she
had self-harmed, the 14-year-old said that she felt
there was "no way out", and that she was convinced
she would be sent back to Turkey.
The Home Office has been trying to remove Meltem and
her mother to Germany, where their asylum
application was first refused, despite the fact that
for the past six years Meltem has been educated in
the UK, and is now fluent in English.
Following the doctor's report, Meltem was
transferred to Bedford hospital with her mother on
Wednesday, where she first heard from her lawyer of
plans to remove them the next day.
Speaking from her room in Bedford hospital
yesterday, Meltem said: "The commissioner came and
asked all about me. He stayed for half an hour, and
asked about when they picked me up, and why I wanted
to commit suicide." www.ekurd.net
Meltem continued: "The thing that made me depressed
was that they put me in Yarl's Wood for three months
and I couldn't go to school or see my friends." She
alleged that the commissioner had made a guarantee
that he would take her case directly to a minister
in parliament. "I'd just like to go back to school
with my friends," she said.
A spokesperson for the commissioner confirmed that
he was "visiting a child in hospital in the Bedford
area" yesterday morning. The spokesperson continued:
"We do have concerns about detention when it comes
to the length of stay for families seeking asylum.
We realise these can bring up many emotional issues
particularly for young people, and we are listening
to children."
Maud Lennard, the Zimbabwean asylum-seeker whose
difficulties at the hands of the asylum system were
also reported in The Independent earlier this week,
again resisted removal on Wednesday night. She had
been due to be removed to Malawi, but screamed until
the pilot ordered for her to be taken off the plane.
Last night Liam Byrne, minister for Immigration,
said: "We do not comment on individual cases."
But he added: "We will not tolerate illegal migrants
disrupting deportation from Britain and will take
every step necessary, in the taxpayer's interest, to
enforce returns of those with no right to be here."
independent co.uk
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