Nigerian woman's deportation halted

A Nigerian woman who was arrested by gardaí in Sligo last night has won a temporary injunction to halt her deportation.

Pamela Izbekhai had spent the last five weeks in hiding, while her two daughters were looked after elsewhere.

At the High Court, her lawyers said her first daughter Elizabeth bled to death in 1994 at the age of 19 months after undergoing female circumcision.

They said she feared her remaining daughters, aged three and five, would be subjected to female genital mutilation if she was deported to Nigeria.

Judge Barry White granted a temporary injunction to Ms Izbekhai, who was not present in court.

The case will be heard again in the High Court on January 23, when Ms Izbekhai’s lawyers are expected to seek a judicial review of the deportation order.

Ms Izbekhai was arrested by gardai in Sligo yesterday minutes after leaving a meeting with a social worker and brought to Mountjoy Garda station in Dublin.

She went into hiding on December 8 after immigration officers acting on a deportation order arrived to pick her up at Globe House, the asylum seeker centre in Sligo where she was staying.

Her application for asylum was turned down on appeal.