Sick mother faces death following deportation

A MOTHER of two young girls whose husband and son were murdered and who is being deported to her native South Africa today will die if she does not receive proper medication.

Nteta Appiakorang has a potentially fatal illness and will have difficulty receiving the medication needed after she arrives back tomorrow. She can only bring a limited amount of medicine with her.

Ms Appiakorang, who has two daughters, Yesunia, eight, and 11-year-old Senia, will be put on a flight with her girls this afternoon after leaving her home in Ballymullen, Tralee.

She was unable to give an interview yesterday after collapsing as she entered her local garda station to report for the last time.

Friend and supporter Deirdre Levi said: “I am just shocked. It’s very hard to comprehend that this could happen in a democratic, civilised country.”

Appeals to Justice Minister Michael McDowell and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern have fallen on deaf ears.

Ms Levi said: “There’s been a lot of calls to the Taoiseach. He’s aware of the situation.”

Ms Levi says it is likely the two girls, Senita and Yesunia, will become orphans if their mother does not get the medication she needs. The Irish Examiner knows what Nteta suffers from but has been asked not to reveal details until she has left Ireland.

“She will arrive back in South Africa at 7.30 in the morning. She will be going back to her township. She has no-one there. She has not got anything. I cannot believe this is happening,” said Ms Levi.

“The callousness of sending a single mother, whose husband and son have been murdered, away from her new home is hard to believe.”

In her two and a half years in Tralee, Nteta and her children have become integral members of the community. Nteta volunteered with the housing charity Threshold and has helped other asylum seekers.

Few applications from South Africans succeed as the country is regarded as stable. Nteta, an ethnic Zulu, says she will be in danger if sent back as her husband had been involved in the Inkatha movement, at odds, often violently, with the ruling African National Congress.