Zimbabwean asylum hunger strikers end action

THE three female Zimbabwean asylum seekers who went on hunger strike two weeks ago suspended their action on Wednesday last week after the Malawian embassy in London disowned one of the women.

The women, detained at Yarls Wood Immigration Removal Centre, were all due to be deported to Malawi after travelling to Britain using that country’s passports.

Originally, five women embarked on the strike but one was deported to Malawi and another started eating again.

Britain has refused the women’s plea for asylum, insisting that they travelled on “genuine” Malawian passports and are therefore Malawian and not Zimbabwean as they claim.

The UK government is currently not deporting failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe, awaiting the outcome of a country guidance case known as HS (Zimbabwe) which is currently before the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT).

Rights groups say the UK government is showing breathtaking insensitivity to the asylum seekers’ plight.

Maud Kadangu Lennard, another detainee at the Bedford facility who was due to be deported on Wednesday last week said they stopped the action after the Malawian embassy confirmed she was not a Malawian.

Faina Manuel Pondesi and Zandile Sibanda, the other hunger strikers, also suspended their action.

Kadangu’s lawyers have now lodged an application with the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal to secure her release on bail.

Many Zimbabweans trying to beat the visa regime in Harare have used passports of neighbouring countries including Malawi and South Africa to travel to the UK. The Home Office policy has been to deport them to those countries, insisting they are safe destinations.

The policy has drawn fire from human rights groups, including those in Malawi.

Malawi Watch executive director Billy Banda said most of the deportees ended up destitute in Malawi, where they also faced the possibility of being sent to jail for fraudulently obtaining Malawian documents.

He said: “It is wrong for the UK government to displace these Zimbabweans who escaped a repressive regime by obtaining a Malawian passport to seek protection in UK. What the UK is doing is not deportation but displacement. How can they deport someone to a country that one has no roots?”