Mick Hartley

Adam LeBor has already flagged this at Harry’s Place, but still, the more publicity the better:

Dawn had just broken when the bombs dropped on the village in Darfur where Amuna Ibrahim, four months pregnant with her second child, was tending to her young son.

The air assault on Hamada was a prelude to an attack by the Janjawid, the Arab “devils on horseback”, who left 105 people, more than half the village, dead.

The horrors of that day, two years ago, have barely subsided. But, as Mrs Ibrahim sits barefoot on the floor of her home in Doncaster, she faces new horrors — the prospect that she and her two children, one born in Birmingham, are to be sent back to the land from which she fled.

She is among scores of Darfuris summoned in recent days by the Home Office. The sudden rush to deport them — some are due to be flown back tomorrow — comes before a crucial Court of Appeal ruling that could stop Britain from sending them back to Khartoum, the seat of the government that sent the murderous horsemen and bombers to wreak havoc on Darfur.

Mrs Ibrahim grabbed her son, Omar, and fled the Janjawid attack. When she returned, at the end of the day, Hamada was burnt-out and littered with the corpses of women and children.

Mrs Ibrahim, 33, who arrived in Britain 18 months ago, is among 60 Darfuri asylum-seekers who have received letters in the past week, ordering them to report to immigration officials. At least two dozen more, who were in the process of making fresh asylum claims, have been taken into detention in preparation for their deportation — against the explicit advice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who insists that Darfuris are at risk if returned to Khartoum.

Lawyers and campaigners say that the unprecedented flurry of activity is the Government’s attempt to meet deportation targets before the Khartoum route is closed to it. John Bercow, the former Conservative frontbencher who raised the issue in the Commons this week, called on the Government to suspend the deportations until after the judicial ruling.

“It is unacceptable for the Government to steamroller ahead with a policy that may be very soon judged out of order,” he told The Times. “By returning them, the Government is exposing vulnerable people to possible imprisonment, torture or death.”

His comments came after revelations about a Darfuri deported from Britain to Khartoum who was tortured on arrival by intelligence agents. They had apparently been made aware of his return by Sudanese embassy officials in London who had worked with the Home Office to deport him.

And here’s Adam’s
accompanying piece.