Call to release Nigerian families from NI detention centre

The British Home Office faced demands today for the release of two Nigerian families who settled in the North and are being held in a detention centre awaiting deportation.

Amnesty International led calls during a protest at Stormont for the British government to show “compassion” this Christmas by allowing the Adefowoju and Falode families to return to their homes in Belfast.

More than 150 supporters of the families protested outside Stormont today calling for the home office to reconsider its decision to deport the families.

The calls came as the case of a Congolese family based in south Belfast also facing deportation – the Kazadis – came under the spotlight, with Stormont First Minister Ian Paisley agreeing to meet them later today.

At the protest for the Adefowojus and Falodes, Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland Programme Director, said a message was being sent by people in east Belfast to the Home Office.

“This is an example of the community of East Belfast saying give us our neighbours back,” he said.

“We are here to support the call for the home office to show compassion this Christmas and let the family get out of the detention centre and back in the community.”

Mr Corrigan added that the home office did not usually listen but there were examples of campaigns working.

The mother and children of the Adefowoju family were detained by immigration officers on November 30 and transported to Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre near London, where there are being held awaiting deportation.

Mrs Adefowoju claims she faces threats from paramilitaries in Nigeria over someone else’s debt while Ms Falode, who has three children, says she is being forced in her own country to wed an already-married Nigerian man.

Cross-community Alliance Party Assembly member Anna Lo said: “We are all here to give support to the families.

“They have been here for some time and they are very much part of our society and community here.”

The South Belfast MLA continued: “We were all devastated to hear the unfair treatment and traumatic experience that they received by being sent from here to Scotland, England and now they are going to be kept in the detention centre for Christmas.

“We want the Home Office to take note of how they have been treated and ask for reconsideration and compassion to allow the families to stay here.”

Meanwhile a family facing deportation to the Democratic Republic of Congo will take their case directly to Ian Paisley later today.

Paul and Arleth Kazadi M’Wepu fled the war-torn African country in 2005 after they were accused of being political dissidents and were imprisoned.

They arrived in the North and settled in south Belfast where they work and have become active members of the Elim Pentecostal Church.

In December 2005 they had a daughter born in Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital.

The home office has recently been in touch with them saying they will be deported.