Deportation of HIV-positive parents and boy halted by last-minute hitch

Karen McVeigh
Wednesday April 4, 2007
The Guardian

A seven-year-old boy and his HIV-positive parents escaped deportation last night after a children's charity warned the Home Office that it was effectively condemning the boy to death if it sent his family back to Malawi.

Martin Narey, chief executive of Barnardo's, said Dumisani Lungu's mother was so ill she could die within a week and his father, Brian Lungu, could soon follow, leaving him an orphan and likely to die in Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world.

Speaking earlier yesterday, Dumisani's mother, Caroline Manchinjili, said that if they were sent back, she and her husband would die from the lack of medical treatment for HIV/Aids and their son would be left alone. "In Malawi, there is death for people with HIV," she said, from Yarls Wood immigration detention centre.

"No one will look after us. Everyone will run away from us. This is just the end of our world."

Last night Mr Narey, former head of the Prison Service, said: "We are relieved that Caroline and her family have not been deported tonight but the future of this traumatised and vulnerable family is still completely uncertain."

He said he would continue to fight for them to remain in the UK.

The family were taken from Yarls Wood late yesterday afternoon and were due to be deported last night. However, they were told an escort could not be found. A barrister representing the family will now lodge an application for permission to apply for a judicial review and this will be sent to the high court in London today. They came to the UK seeking asylum in 2005, but their case failed. Both parents are in the final stages of HIV/Aids-related illnesses and their son, who has so far tested negative, is feared to be HIV-positive because of his family history.

Mr Narey said that, while asylum tribunals took standards of medical care into account when considering whether to deport asylum seekers, HIV/Aids treatment in Malawi was so limited as to be non-existent. He said it was nonsense for the Home Office to say it could not make an exception in Dumisani's case and said there were 20 similar cases in the UK.

"It's quite wrong for the Home Office to say an exception cannot be made," he said. "We should not send a child home to die.

"In this case, as in other cases we have seen with Malawi, they have said because treatment is available the family can be returned. We should just be very clear and the Home Office should be very clear: this seven-year-old boy will watch his mum and dad die and he will die because of that policy."

The Home Office does not comment on specific cases. It said in a statement that serious medical conditions were taken into account when evaluating asylum claims, but that to allow exceptions would create inconsistencies.

"We are not convinced that a special dispensation should be made for victims of HIV, as this could create inconsistencies in how we treat individuals with other serious illnesses," the statement said.

Home Office guidance on asylum cases states that, while suffering from HIV/Aids is not in itself a bar to removal, Britain has an obligation under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights if there is evidence that, due to a complete absence of medical treatment in the country concerned, deportation would "significantly reduce" the applicant's life expectancy. Article 3 outlaws torture or inhumane treatment.

Mr Narey said there were 20 or so children in the UK with HIV/Aids who are likely to face deportation to "countries like Malawi where death will follow".

He added: "The clinician has told me, told the Home Office that Caroline - who has very serious epilepsy on top of HIV - may die within a week and very shortly after we will have a seven-year-old boy completely on his own and he will die."

MALAWI: Churches oppose former president's new bid for power

By Frank Jomo,

[Ecumenical News International]

Attempts by former Malawi president Bakili Muluzi to stage a political comeback by contesting presidential elections in 2009 are creating division in the central African country, with church leaders warning he should not stand.

The 24-member Malawi Council of Churches (MCC), which includes Anglican, Baptist and Presbyterian denominations, has condemned plans by the former president to contest the 2009 presidential elections, noting he has already served two five-year terms of office. A day after it criticized the move, the MCC was joined on March 31 by the 40-strong Blantyre Pastors' Fraternity which said Muluzi should not stand for the presidency in 2009.

"Presidents should serve for two terms and go to rest," said MCC secretary general, Canaan Phiri. "If there is a loophole in the constitution, which Muluzi wants to use, then it is unfortunate." Phiri noted that the church council had in 2004 spoken out against attempts by the former president to change the constitution to allow him to stand for a third term.

He said it was ironic that Muluzi said he now wants to stand in the 2009 elections to defeat incumbent President Bingu Wa Mutharika, who was elected in 2004.

Mutharika had been endorsed by Muluzi to stand as president for the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) party after the former president gave up attempts to change the constitution. But nine months after being voted into power, Mutharika left the UDF and set up his own Democratic Progressive Party, saying Muluzi wanted to rule the country from the behind the scenes.

The Malawi constitution stipulates a president can only serve for two consecutive terms. But it does not clarify whether someone who has previously served two terms can stand again at a later
date.

Muluzi was elected president as leader of the UDF when he won the first democratically contested elections in 1994 after three decades of one-party rule under President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who led the country to independence from Britain in 1964.

Reprieve for child, 7, of dying Aids migrants

The Home Office last night suddenly postponed the deportation of a 7-year-old boy and his HIV-infected parents to Malawi after protests by a former permanent secretary of the department (Richard Ford writes).

Plans to fly the family to Nairobi en route to Malawi were abandoned only hours before the plane was due to leave at 8pm. The family spent the night at Tinsley House removal centre near Gatwick airport, unaware of whether the Home Office will attempt to deport them today.

Last night’s decision came only hours after Martin Narey, a former second permanent secretary in the Home Office, protested that deportation would in effect condemn the boy to death. Mr Narey, now chief executive of Barnardo’s, said Du-misani Lungu’s parents — Caroline Manchinjili and Brian Lungu — were likely to die soon, leaving him an orphan facing almost certain death in the southern African country.

Mr Narey said asylum tribunals took standards of care into account when considering whether to deport failed asylum-seekers, but while HIV treatment was available in Malawi it was so limited as to be virtually nonexistent.

“The Home office should be very clear: this 7-year-old boy will watch his mum and dad die and he will die because of that policy,” he said.

The family sought asylum in 2005, citing political oppression. Both parents are in the final stages of Aids-related ill-nesses and their son is feared to be HIV-positive.