Campaigners Urge Britain To Release Congolese Woman From Detention

Kinshasa, slum, Democratic Republic of Congo

Home Office wants to send her back to Kinshasa, one of the world's worst living slums.

After eight years, the Home Office have decided to deport Nlandu to a country she barely knows any more, separating her from her husband and causing immeasurable heartache and difficulty for both of them.

By Citizen Correspondent Ambrose Musiyiwa

Date Posted: 01/09/07

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Civil rights activists are calling on Liam Byrne, the United Kingdom's minister of state for nationality, citizenship and immigration, to release a Congolese woman from detention and review her case. The woman, Nlandu Nsingu (35), has been living in the U.K. since April 1998 when she fled the Democratic Republic of Congo. She got married six years ago and was living with her husband until October last year when she was detained at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre pending deportation to the Congo. Nsingu's husband is also a refugee from the Congo who arrived in the U.K. in 1994 and was granted indefinite leave to remain.

For her own part, Nsingu was a member of the Mutualite de Bosonge (MUBO), an organisation that was campaigning for peace and democracy when Laurent Kabila's forces were fighting to oust Mobuto Sese Seko. MUBO was received with suspicion and hostility by all groups involved in the fighting and its members were rounded up, tortured and detained.

After a relative managed to secure her release, Nsingu fled the Congo and has been living in the U.K. for the past eight years. Civil rights activists are urging the Home Office to allow Nsingu to continue her life with her husband in the U.K.

Liz Atherton, who is co-ordinating the campaign, says the action by the Home Office is unfair. "After eight years, the Home Office have decided to deport Nlandu to a country she barely knows any more, separating her from her husband and causing immeasurable heartache and difficulty for both of them."

"The immigration authorities want to wrench her away from the deep friendships and relationships she has formed here, from the community that has grown to love her, from her support structures, from her future."

In a telephone interview on Monday, Nlangu Nsingu revealed that the Home Office has told her she will be deported on January 30. An earlier attempt to deport her failed after she resisted boarding the plane. She says during this struggle she suffered racist verbal abuse. The people who were escorting her also directed sexual swear words at her.

"I do not want to go back to the D.R.C.," Nsingu said. "If I go back, they will kill me."

Nsingu risks being deported to the Congo at a time when concerns have been raised about the continuing rounding up and persecution of individuals and groups opposed to Joseph Kabila's government.