Contact number: 07856032991, 07824996724

3^rd September 2010
PRESS RELEASE  

Iraqi refugees escape from detention centre to avoid deportation to Baghdad
  Two Iraqi Kurdish refugees scheduled to be forcibly deported to Baghdad on Monday 6^th September escaped from Campsfield Detention Centre in Oxford last night.

Mohammed Abdullah and Ahmed Hussein Saeed climbed over the perimeter fence and escaped. Police helicopters and dogs were used to catch Mohammed Abdullah last night. Ahmed Hussein Saeed was arrested this morning in London. He was taken to hospital with a badly injured leg and deep cuts from the fence’s razor wire.

A friend of his told the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees:

“he’s been here for nine years and has done nothing wrong here. He’s running away from tribal violence. They tried to send him back before but the Government over there wouldn’t accept him into the country. He’s desperate not to go back.”  

The UK Border Agency tried to deport Ahmed Hussein Saeed five months ago but the Kurdistan Regional Government, which governs the northern, Kurdish region of Iraq, refused to accept him as he was being deported forcibly. As the UK Government is no longer able to send people back to the Kurdistan region they are now sending people back to Baghdad.

More than fifty people have been given tickets for the planned deportation flight on the 6^th September. A flight left on Wednesday, the 1^st September, carrying fifteen people from the UK to Baghdad. In Baghdad the UK Border Agency officials tried to send the flight to the KRG to deport the Kurdish people on the flight there but they were told by the Kurdistan Regional Government it would not be accepted.

The secretary of the Human Rights Commission in the Kurdish parliament on the night of the flight told the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees that he had talked to Suleymania and Erbil airports as well as the Kurdish Home Office and told them not to accept the flight. Instead the Kurdish people on the flight were given $100, put up in a hotel for the night and then told to make their own way the next day.

The flight comes as the Home Office has confirmed that the Kurdistan Regional Government is refusing to accept forcible deportation flights into the north of the country, under pressure from a campaign by the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees.
 
Dashty Jamal, secretary of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, says:
 
“These deportations must be stopped. There is a campaign in Iraq of politicians, writers, journalists and many of the freedom loving in the country that condemns this collusion between the puppet militia running Iraq and the British Government to send back people who were victims of the violence that continues to devastate the country. We call on people in Britain to do the same.

 
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Contact: 07856032991, 07824996724
ifir@hotmail.co.uk
www.csdiraq.com
www.federationifir.com
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Notes for editors

1. The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees campaigns for the rights of Iraqi refugees and against forcible deportations and detention.  It is a member of the Coalitions to Stop Deportations to Iraq (www.csdiraq.com)

2. The UK Home Office has for the first time accepted that the Kurdistan Regional Government will not accept forcible deportations. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/31/kurdish-uk-asylum-seekers-iraq

3. The UNHCR’s statement regarding the last flight to Baghdad can be found here:
http://www.unhcr.org/4c0e33e94fc.html
 
4. Iraqi refugees continue to suffer from the forcible deportation policy. Kurdish media has reported Rebwar Aziz Mohammed Amin, who was deported on the previous Baghdad deportation flight, as suffering from severe mental illness since returning while Osman Rasul committed suicide in July this year after changes to legal aid meant he lost his legal representation to fight his immigration claim (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/01/asylum-seeker-osman-rasul-death-legal-aid)
 
5  Bombings and violence continue in Iraq. See for example:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11006867