Forced Repatriation
Demonstrator: Asylum right is human right. Release all the detainees now…
2 – KPTC:
Karzan: I am out side the Home Office in London on my way to a demonstration organised by the coalition to stop deportation to Iraq.
3 – KVO1:
Sherzad Jalal is on the Home Office’s list of forced repatriation. He claimed asylum upon his arrival in the UK in 1999 and has spent 8 years living in London.
As a failed asylum seeker Sherzad no longer has any rights in this country whatsoever. Furthermore, if selected by the Home office, Sherzad could find himself repatriated within a week.
K: Sherzad what are you protesting about?
S: If the Home Office continues with this policy to force repatriate Iraqi Kurds, then it wont be long before I get sent back myself.
4 – KVO 2:
According to the International Federation of Iraqi refugees, there are 8000 more on the Home Office's list of forced repatriation, most of whom had escaped Iraq from Saddam and have already spent more than 6 years establishing a new life in the UK.
5 – KVO 3:
Currently Sherzad lives with his British girlfriend Katie. They have been together for 6 years now and want to get married.
S: We were planning to get married on your birthday on May the 31st.
6 - KVO 4:
However, under a new UK law introduced on the 2nd of February 2005 – failed asylum seekers are not allowed to get married here.
Katie: We need permission from the Home Office to get married, what they call a certificate of marriage and we are not able to obtain that at the moment. It puts us in a difficult situation, it puts pressure on our relationship and I’m sure it would with any couples out there who are in the similar situation.
Sherzad: We will fight for it because it is our right to get married. Forget about citizenship; forget about where you live, we want to go on with our life.
7 – KVO 5:
Sherzad claims his life will be in danger if he is forced to return to his hometown of Kirkuk and he has good reason to do so. Kirkuk is far from safe and has become just as violent as anywhere in Iraq. During the first 3 months of 2007 a total of 90 bombs exploded there.
Sadullah Mohamed Kakl, another Iraqi Kurd, came to the UK in 2002 seeking refuge. He was just 16.
He lived here in Peterborough for 4 years. His asylum application was refused, the Home Office told him to go home or he will be forcibly repatriated.
8 – KVO 6:
As a failed asylum seeker Sadullah was denied any support from the government and was refused permission to work. It was a hand to mouth existence, but terrified of the prospect of what awaited him in the increasingly violent theatre of Iraq he stayed on for 4 years living off the charity of relatives and friends seen gathered here.
Eventually, when the British Government offered him £3000 pounds to return Sadullah chose to fly home to Kirkuk, and on Sunday the 28th of January 2007 he was tragically killed by a car bomb.
The question is whether the government should have offered a financial incentive to return to a country where according to the UN more than 30.000 people were killed last year. Rebwar, Sadullah’s cousin is angry at the choice Sadullah was given.
Rebwar: What responsibility will the government now take for his death since they refused him asylum?
9 – KVO 7:
Keen to avoid the same fate as Sadullah, Sherzad is refusing to accept the so-called voluntary return.
While he remains here he must report to the police every week but Sherzad is scared because many of his friends have been suddenly detained when reporting and were marched straight to a detention centre to be forcibly repatriated.
K: Sherzad if you are so worried while reporting to the police you might be detained and put on a plane and sent back, why are you reporting to the police?
S: I know that but I don’t want to be illegal. If I stop reporting I will become an illegal immigrant and I am hoping to win my case.
10 – KVO 8:
For the entire time that Sherzad has been reporting to the police in this manner, he has remained a model citizen and a valued member of his community.
He had already escaped a life of persecution in Iraq, and so it seems even more unfair that he should be treated with similar suspicion in the UK.
11 – KPTC:
Well, we are waiting for Sherzad he is reporting right now at the police station and let’s see if he will come out or he will join the other detainees who are now waiting their forced repatriation.
12 – KVO 9:
If Sherzad is detained and repatriated, their relationship will be jeopardised because Katie won’t be able to join him in Iraq.
Fortunately after a while he appears. Katie and Sherzad can relax again until next week.
13 – KVO 10:
Demonstrations continue outside Colnbrook detention centre, near Heathrow, two days before a group of 38 failed Kurdish asylum seekers are due to be forced repatriated.
Amongst the demonstrators are Sherzad, many British citizens, including MP John McDonell.
MP John McDonnell: What we want to do is get back to a situation where innocents are no longer locked up in this way, because these people have committed no crimes whatsoever apart from coming here in an effort to improve the quality of their lives. In most instances they have come from countries where their human rights are being abused and their lives are at risk.
14 – KVO 11:
I managed to talk to a few of the detainees inside who are about to be repatriated. One of them - Luqman Mustafa was particularly distressed.
Luqman: I reported to the police station just as I’ve done for the past six and a half years. They asked me to stay for a so-called routine interview, but they cheated me and detained me.
Karzan: What are the conditions like inside?
Luqman: They call it a detention centre but really it’s a prison except we are not kept in cells.
15 – KVO 12:
On the day of repatriation, the demonstration moves to the Brize Norton RAF Base in Oxfordshire where the detainees are to be shipped back on board of a military plane.
I spoke to one of the protestors - Teresa Hayter…
Theresa: If they don’t like people coming here well they shouldn’t go and bomb their countries, and the great majority of people who have come here for asylum have come from countries which have been invaded by the west and the others come from countries with repressive regimes which are supported by the west.
16 – KPTC:
Despite the protest, appeal and demonstrations the Home Office decided to go ahead with force repatriating the failed Kurdish asylum seekers. The only thing I can do now is to fly out to Iraq, to Kurdistan region and find out for myself what happens to these forcibly repatriated asylum seekers.
17 – KVO 13:
The Kurdish region in the north of Iraq is certainly not as dangerous as Baghdad, but the situation here is still very volatile and the atmosphere is extremely tense - there are checkpoints everywhere and almost everyone is armed.
18 – KVO 14:
The 38 detainees from the UK landed here at Erbil International Airport. And my first search is for Luqman who I spoke to on the phone outside Colnbrook detention center just before his repatriation.
Luqman: I begged them not to send me back. I told them my life would be in danger. I asked them to let me go to another country where I might be safe but the Home Office didn’t listen.
One morning the security guards at the detention center woke us up at five o’clock, handcuffed us and put us on a coach. We were taken to a military airport and were each escorted on board separately by an immigration officer.
…Fifteen minutes before landing they handed us all bulletproof jackets and helmets. We asked “why do we have to wear these things?” They said “because we are entering an unsafe zone.” “Unsafe?”, we said, “so why have you sent us back?”
19 – KVO 15:
Luqman told me his life was in danger in Iraq because of his past involvement within local politics.
Karzan: You claim by being here your life is in danger and you are bringing danger to your family as well. Is that why you want to go back to the UK?
Luqman: Yes. That is part of the reason, but it’s also because I have a girlfriend there...We love each other very much and want to carry on living together.
(Luqman calls his girlfriend, Tracy, and hands the phone over to Karzan).
Karzan: Tracy hello. …How do you feel about living so far away from Luqman?
Tracy: I don't understand why they sent him back. He's done nothing wrong in England. …Most of the time I cry because he’s not here, because I love him so much and we want to get married and try for a baby.
20 – KVO 16:
Luqman’s parents told me that their son’s behaviour since his return is really worrying them. He doesn’t leave the house or socialise in the family, and spends most of his time on the phone to Tracy.
Mother: My son is very scared. We are very worried about him and we can hardly sleep at night.
Father: He is very depressed, and it’s a great shame for a country like Great Britain, which claims to respect human rights, should handcuff my son and force him to come back in this way.
Karzan (pointing to Kalashnikov on wall): And tell me, what do you need this gun for?
Father: It is for our own protection. Not to attack anyone, but we need it for our safety.
21 – KVO 17:
Saddam and his regime may not be a threat to the Kurds any more, but when security is such a problem that every household has a gun, I find it hard to understand how the Home Office can claim that this region is safe.
The United Kingdom's policy of forcing Iraqi Kurds back to their homeland, is putting many lives at risk. I went to see Falah Mustafa, the head of foreign relations for the Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG, to ask him what his position was.
Falah: The KRG's position is clear - we reject any forced repatriation of our refugees. Kurdistan in not ready yet to receive these large numbers of people who got failed asylum seeking cases because we know that these people, when they come back, they will become a burden on themselves, on their families, and also on the KRG. Therefore we encourage voluntary repatriation but not enforced repatriation.
22 – KVO 18:
But the KRG’s call for voluntary return is very different to what happens in practice in the UK.
The Home Office says that since March 2003 more than 2,500 Iraqis have decided to return voluntarily, just like young Sadullah Kakl did.
But when someone is refused asylum in the UK and deprived of all their rights how can this be considered truly voluntary?
23 – KVO 19:
I meet Sadullah’s young widow and his mother.
Mother: a missile hit our house and killed fourteen members of my family - my brother, my sister, my nephews and nieces. Sadullah was all I had left and now he is gone as well.
As if this was not enough, after his death, Sadullah’s widow discovered that she was pregnant…
24 – KVO 20:
During my trip I heard of other cases like Sadullah - victims of so-called “voluntary” return, but I’m worried that it won’t be long before someone who has been forcibly returned meets with the same fate.
Surely the Home office should be stopping people returning to Iraq, not doing the opposite? And no wonder I am yet to find anyone here who views their policy favourably.
Luka’s ordeal is a prime example of the divisions that still exist in this region, despite the fall of Saddam.
He is a Muslim but loved a Christian girl. Her family threatened to kill him.
Luka’s parents borrowed $10.000US dollars to smuggle him out. He ended up in the UK where he applied for asylum.
To his horror he was refused and force repatriated... But Luka is determined to make his way back to the UK.
Luka: If I stay I will end up with serious depression. Since I have to lock myself indoors all the time I don’t have a life here. Unless I become a soldier or policeman and get blown up in Baghdad or Kirkuk. Over here the most sacred things are guns but I hate guns. I have never picked one up and I never will.
25 – KVO 21:
Luka’s fear of the gun culture is obviously justified, but it is the case of Sarwan, another failed asylum seeker from Europe, that is the most devastating:
Unlike Luka, on his return, Sarwan reluctantly accepted a place in the new Iraqi army. On the night before his posting in Baghdad he lost control of his senses completely; with his AK- 47 in hand, he not only shot at 9 of his neighbours, killing two of them, but also fired at and wounded his own father and 6 month old sister, before eventually being gunned down himself by a surviving neighbour.
Taha was Sarwna’s childhood school friend – he knew him very well.
Taha: I never expected this from him. He never hurt anyone in his life. Before he went to Europe he was a really sociable guy. But when he came back, he wasn’t the same person; he kept to himself a lot and hardly ever came out.
26 – KPTC
Ismaeil Hasan was injured by Sarwan, he was shot twice and his son and wife as well.
K: How do you feel about the British Government sending back Kurds –failed asylum seekers back here to this place?
Ismaeil: Its wrong to force them back because they will end up with problems here. Once they get used to a new way of life over there they are forced back here to disorder and chaos and they just can’t handle it. And this is what happens. This is why it is wrong to force them back.
27 – KVO 22:
On the night of the incident Sarwan’s family fled the town in fear of reprisals by the neighbours- the law of the gun is what rules around here.
I caught up with Sarwan’s father in his new hometown of Tobzawa.
Father: Ask anyone you like my son was no killer but he was driven to it by despair. Something just snapped in his brain.
28 – KVO 23:
His father also told me his son was very cleaver and spoke five languages. Life could have been so different for Sarwan.
According to the United Nations, some 50,000 people are fleeing their homes in Iraq every month. 1.9 million are now dispersed in other regions of Iraq, and two million of them are refugees in neighboring countries.
Perhaps the Home Office’s controversial policy of forced repatriation is intended to deter some of these new refugees from seeking sanctuary in the UK.
On the hills outside Slemany city I met with a group of failed asylum seekers.
Karzan: Can I ask how many of you were forced repatriated, handcuffed on board of a military aircraft and brought back here? [hands go up] .... Five of you.
And how many came back voluntarily, or so-called “voluntarily”? [hands go up] 1, 2 ,3 ,4, 5, 6.
And how many of you will go back to the UK?....
[hands go up]
..Everyone! You all want to go back to the UK?
Group: yes, yes.
Karzan: You will go back via Iran and Turkey, you will smuggle yourselves back?
Group: yes, definitely.
29 – KVO 24:
…In fact a few of the forced repatriated and those returned voluntarily have already succeeded in making it back to the UK.
So one wonders if the home office is actually fighting a losing battle.
Before returning to the U.K. my last stop is to meet Sherzad’s parents in Kirkuk. I asked them why they don’t tell their son to simply leave London and come home voluntarily.
Father: Before he left our son was receiving death threats, and even now we are threatened ourselves. If he was to return he would be killed for sure.
30 – KVO 25:
Sherzad was not only fleeing from Saddam, his death threats were being made by a local fundamentalist religious group.
Mother: Our lives are in constant danger here. We live with explosions, kidnappings and terrorism. Only yesterday a bomb killed 10 people just round the corner from here. What mother wants her son to live so far away? I can’t even eat properly because of how much I miss him. I long to have him back in my arms, to hold him and kiss him. I have been like this for almost 10 years now.
31 – KVO 26:
Back in London. I am revisiting Sherzad to find out if anything has changed with his situation.
Sherzad: Nothing has changed. My situation with immigration remains the same.
32 – KVO 27:
And I also have a message to deliver.
(Karzan puts a DVD in the player and Sherzad watches his parents on the TV screen).
Mother: My dear son Sherzad please don’t come back. Whatever happens stay where you are, there is no life here for you. Of course I miss you. I would love to have you here with me but this is how our life is, what can we do?
Father: My son Sherzad we would love to have you with us all the time but because your life is in danger here. I can not allow you to come back. I would rather you spent the rest of your life in a detention centre than come back here to be killed.
33 – KVO 28:
But for now Sherzad’s fate is out of his hands. He remains on the Home Office’s list to be forced repatriated and joins thousands of others who face an uncertain future.
Demonstrator: Asylum right is human right. Release all the detainees now…
2 – KPTC:
Karzan: I am out side the Home Office in London on my way to a demonstration organised by the coalition to stop deportation to Iraq.
3 – KVO1:
Sherzad Jalal is on the Home Office’s list of forced repatriation. He claimed asylum upon his arrival in the UK in 1999 and has spent 8 years living in London.
As a failed asylum seeker Sherzad no longer has any rights in this country whatsoever. Furthermore, if selected by the Home office, Sherzad could find himself repatriated within a week.
K: Sherzad what are you protesting about?
S: If the Home Office continues with this policy to force repatriate Iraqi Kurds, then it wont be long before I get sent back myself.
4 – KVO 2:
According to the International Federation of Iraqi refugees, there are 8000 more on the Home Office's list of forced repatriation, most of whom had escaped Iraq from Saddam and have already spent more than 6 years establishing a new life in the UK.
5 – KVO 3:
Currently Sherzad lives with his British girlfriend Katie. They have been together for 6 years now and want to get married.
S: We were planning to get married on your birthday on May the 31st.
6 - KVO 4:
However, under a new UK law introduced on the 2nd of February 2005 – failed asylum seekers are not allowed to get married here.
Katie: We need permission from the Home Office to get married, what they call a certificate of marriage and we are not able to obtain that at the moment. It puts us in a difficult situation, it puts pressure on our relationship and I’m sure it would with any couples out there who are in the similar situation.
Sherzad: We will fight for it because it is our right to get married. Forget about citizenship; forget about where you live, we want to go on with our life.
7 – KVO 5:
Sherzad claims his life will be in danger if he is forced to return to his hometown of Kirkuk and he has good reason to do so. Kirkuk is far from safe and has become just as violent as anywhere in Iraq. During the first 3 months of 2007 a total of 90 bombs exploded there.
Sadullah Mohamed Kakl, another Iraqi Kurd, came to the UK in 2002 seeking refuge. He was just 16.
He lived here in Peterborough for 4 years. His asylum application was refused, the Home Office told him to go home or he will be forcibly repatriated.
8 – KVO 6:
As a failed asylum seeker Sadullah was denied any support from the government and was refused permission to work. It was a hand to mouth existence, but terrified of the prospect of what awaited him in the increasingly violent theatre of Iraq he stayed on for 4 years living off the charity of relatives and friends seen gathered here.
Eventually, when the British Government offered him £3000 pounds to return Sadullah chose to fly home to Kirkuk, and on Sunday the 28th of January 2007 he was tragically killed by a car bomb.
The question is whether the government should have offered a financial incentive to return to a country where according to the UN more than 30.000 people were killed last year. Rebwar, Sadullah’s cousin is angry at the choice Sadullah was given.
Rebwar: What responsibility will the government now take for his death since they refused him asylum?
9 – KVO 7:
Keen to avoid the same fate as Sadullah, Sherzad is refusing to accept the so-called voluntary return.
While he remains here he must report to the police every week but Sherzad is scared because many of his friends have been suddenly detained when reporting and were marched straight to a detention centre to be forcibly repatriated.
K: Sherzad if you are so worried while reporting to the police you might be detained and put on a plane and sent back, why are you reporting to the police?
S: I know that but I don’t want to be illegal. If I stop reporting I will become an illegal immigrant and I am hoping to win my case.
10 – KVO 8:
For the entire time that Sherzad has been reporting to the police in this manner, he has remained a model citizen and a valued member of his community.
He had already escaped a life of persecution in Iraq, and so it seems even more unfair that he should be treated with similar suspicion in the UK.
11 – KPTC:
Well, we are waiting for Sherzad he is reporting right now at the police station and let’s see if he will come out or he will join the other detainees who are now waiting their forced repatriation.
12 – KVO 9:
If Sherzad is detained and repatriated, their relationship will be jeopardised because Katie won’t be able to join him in Iraq.
Fortunately after a while he appears. Katie and Sherzad can relax again until next week.
13 – KVO 10:
Demonstrations continue outside Colnbrook detention centre, near Heathrow, two days before a group of 38 failed Kurdish asylum seekers are due to be forced repatriated.
Amongst the demonstrators are Sherzad, many British citizens, including MP John McDonell.
MP John McDonnell: What we want to do is get back to a situation where innocents are no longer locked up in this way, because these people have committed no crimes whatsoever apart from coming here in an effort to improve the quality of their lives. In most instances they have come from countries where their human rights are being abused and their lives are at risk.
14 – KVO 11:
I managed to talk to a few of the detainees inside who are about to be repatriated. One of them - Luqman Mustafa was particularly distressed.
Luqman: I reported to the police station just as I’ve done for the past six and a half years. They asked me to stay for a so-called routine interview, but they cheated me and detained me.
Karzan: What are the conditions like inside?
Luqman: They call it a detention centre but really it’s a prison except we are not kept in cells.
15 – KVO 12:
On the day of repatriation, the demonstration moves to the Brize Norton RAF Base in Oxfordshire where the detainees are to be shipped back on board of a military plane.
I spoke to one of the protestors - Teresa Hayter…
Theresa: If they don’t like people coming here well they shouldn’t go and bomb their countries, and the great majority of people who have come here for asylum have come from countries which have been invaded by the west and the others come from countries with repressive regimes which are supported by the west.
16 – KPTC:
Despite the protest, appeal and demonstrations the Home Office decided to go ahead with force repatriating the failed Kurdish asylum seekers. The only thing I can do now is to fly out to Iraq, to Kurdistan region and find out for myself what happens to these forcibly repatriated asylum seekers.
17 – KVO 13:
The Kurdish region in the north of Iraq is certainly not as dangerous as Baghdad, but the situation here is still very volatile and the atmosphere is extremely tense - there are checkpoints everywhere and almost everyone is armed.
18 – KVO 14:
The 38 detainees from the UK landed here at Erbil International Airport. And my first search is for Luqman who I spoke to on the phone outside Colnbrook detention center just before his repatriation.
Luqman: I begged them not to send me back. I told them my life would be in danger. I asked them to let me go to another country where I might be safe but the Home Office didn’t listen.
One morning the security guards at the detention center woke us up at five o’clock, handcuffed us and put us on a coach. We were taken to a military airport and were each escorted on board separately by an immigration officer.
…Fifteen minutes before landing they handed us all bulletproof jackets and helmets. We asked “why do we have to wear these things?” They said “because we are entering an unsafe zone.” “Unsafe?”, we said, “so why have you sent us back?”
19 – KVO 15:
Luqman told me his life was in danger in Iraq because of his past involvement within local politics.
Karzan: You claim by being here your life is in danger and you are bringing danger to your family as well. Is that why you want to go back to the UK?
Luqman: Yes. That is part of the reason, but it’s also because I have a girlfriend there...We love each other very much and want to carry on living together.
(Luqman calls his girlfriend, Tracy, and hands the phone over to Karzan).
Karzan: Tracy hello. …How do you feel about living so far away from Luqman?
Tracy: I don't understand why they sent him back. He's done nothing wrong in England. …Most of the time I cry because he’s not here, because I love him so much and we want to get married and try for a baby.
20 – KVO 16:
Luqman’s parents told me that their son’s behaviour since his return is really worrying them. He doesn’t leave the house or socialise in the family, and spends most of his time on the phone to Tracy.
Mother: My son is very scared. We are very worried about him and we can hardly sleep at night.
Father: He is very depressed, and it’s a great shame for a country like Great Britain, which claims to respect human rights, should handcuff my son and force him to come back in this way.
Karzan (pointing to Kalashnikov on wall): And tell me, what do you need this gun for?
Father: It is for our own protection. Not to attack anyone, but we need it for our safety.
21 – KVO 17:
Saddam and his regime may not be a threat to the Kurds any more, but when security is such a problem that every household has a gun, I find it hard to understand how the Home Office can claim that this region is safe.
The United Kingdom's policy of forcing Iraqi Kurds back to their homeland, is putting many lives at risk. I went to see Falah Mustafa, the head of foreign relations for the Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG, to ask him what his position was.
Falah: The KRG's position is clear - we reject any forced repatriation of our refugees. Kurdistan in not ready yet to receive these large numbers of people who got failed asylum seeking cases because we know that these people, when they come back, they will become a burden on themselves, on their families, and also on the KRG. Therefore we encourage voluntary repatriation but not enforced repatriation.
22 – KVO 18:
But the KRG’s call for voluntary return is very different to what happens in practice in the UK.
The Home Office says that since March 2003 more than 2,500 Iraqis have decided to return voluntarily, just like young Sadullah Kakl did.
But when someone is refused asylum in the UK and deprived of all their rights how can this be considered truly voluntary?
23 – KVO 19:
I meet Sadullah’s young widow and his mother.
Mother: a missile hit our house and killed fourteen members of my family - my brother, my sister, my nephews and nieces. Sadullah was all I had left and now he is gone as well.
As if this was not enough, after his death, Sadullah’s widow discovered that she was pregnant…
24 – KVO 20:
During my trip I heard of other cases like Sadullah - victims of so-called “voluntary” return, but I’m worried that it won’t be long before someone who has been forcibly returned meets with the same fate.
Surely the Home office should be stopping people returning to Iraq, not doing the opposite? And no wonder I am yet to find anyone here who views their policy favourably.
Luka’s ordeal is a prime example of the divisions that still exist in this region, despite the fall of Saddam.
He is a Muslim but loved a Christian girl. Her family threatened to kill him.
Luka’s parents borrowed $10.000US dollars to smuggle him out. He ended up in the UK where he applied for asylum.
To his horror he was refused and force repatriated... But Luka is determined to make his way back to the UK.
Luka: If I stay I will end up with serious depression. Since I have to lock myself indoors all the time I don’t have a life here. Unless I become a soldier or policeman and get blown up in Baghdad or Kirkuk. Over here the most sacred things are guns but I hate guns. I have never picked one up and I never will.
25 – KVO 21:
Luka’s fear of the gun culture is obviously justified, but it is the case of Sarwan, another failed asylum seeker from Europe, that is the most devastating:
Unlike Luka, on his return, Sarwan reluctantly accepted a place in the new Iraqi army. On the night before his posting in Baghdad he lost control of his senses completely; with his AK- 47 in hand, he not only shot at 9 of his neighbours, killing two of them, but also fired at and wounded his own father and 6 month old sister, before eventually being gunned down himself by a surviving neighbour.
Taha was Sarwna’s childhood school friend – he knew him very well.
Taha: I never expected this from him. He never hurt anyone in his life. Before he went to Europe he was a really sociable guy. But when he came back, he wasn’t the same person; he kept to himself a lot and hardly ever came out.
26 – KPTC
Ismaeil Hasan was injured by Sarwan, he was shot twice and his son and wife as well.
K: How do you feel about the British Government sending back Kurds –failed asylum seekers back here to this place?
Ismaeil: Its wrong to force them back because they will end up with problems here. Once they get used to a new way of life over there they are forced back here to disorder and chaos and they just can’t handle it. And this is what happens. This is why it is wrong to force them back.
27 – KVO 22:
On the night of the incident Sarwan’s family fled the town in fear of reprisals by the neighbours- the law of the gun is what rules around here.
I caught up with Sarwan’s father in his new hometown of Tobzawa.
Father: Ask anyone you like my son was no killer but he was driven to it by despair. Something just snapped in his brain.
28 – KVO 23:
His father also told me his son was very cleaver and spoke five languages. Life could have been so different for Sarwan.
According to the United Nations, some 50,000 people are fleeing their homes in Iraq every month. 1.9 million are now dispersed in other regions of Iraq, and two million of them are refugees in neighboring countries.
Perhaps the Home Office’s controversial policy of forced repatriation is intended to deter some of these new refugees from seeking sanctuary in the UK.
On the hills outside Slemany city I met with a group of failed asylum seekers.
Karzan: Can I ask how many of you were forced repatriated, handcuffed on board of a military aircraft and brought back here? [hands go up] .... Five of you.
And how many came back voluntarily, or so-called “voluntarily”? [hands go up] 1, 2 ,3 ,4, 5, 6.
And how many of you will go back to the UK?....
[hands go up]
..Everyone! You all want to go back to the UK?
Group: yes, yes.
Karzan: You will go back via Iran and Turkey, you will smuggle yourselves back?
Group: yes, definitely.
29 – KVO 24:
…In fact a few of the forced repatriated and those returned voluntarily have already succeeded in making it back to the UK.
So one wonders if the home office is actually fighting a losing battle.
Before returning to the U.K. my last stop is to meet Sherzad’s parents in Kirkuk. I asked them why they don’t tell their son to simply leave London and come home voluntarily.
Father: Before he left our son was receiving death threats, and even now we are threatened ourselves. If he was to return he would be killed for sure.
30 – KVO 25:
Sherzad was not only fleeing from Saddam, his death threats were being made by a local fundamentalist religious group.
Mother: Our lives are in constant danger here. We live with explosions, kidnappings and terrorism. Only yesterday a bomb killed 10 people just round the corner from here. What mother wants her son to live so far away? I can’t even eat properly because of how much I miss him. I long to have him back in my arms, to hold him and kiss him. I have been like this for almost 10 years now.
31 – KVO 26:
Back in London. I am revisiting Sherzad to find out if anything has changed with his situation.
Sherzad: Nothing has changed. My situation with immigration remains the same.
32 – KVO 27:
And I also have a message to deliver.
(Karzan puts a DVD in the player and Sherzad watches his parents on the TV screen).
Mother: My dear son Sherzad please don’t come back. Whatever happens stay where you are, there is no life here for you. Of course I miss you. I would love to have you here with me but this is how our life is, what can we do?
Father: My son Sherzad we would love to have you with us all the time but because your life is in danger here. I can not allow you to come back. I would rather you spent the rest of your life in a detention centre than come back here to be killed.
33 – KVO 28:
But for now Sherzad’s fate is out of his hands. He remains on the Home Office’s list to be forced repatriated and joins thousands of others who face an uncertain future.