Appeal Court Ruling On Darfur Does Not Go Far Enough
A Court of Appeal ban on sending asylum seekers from Darfur whose applications have failed back to Sudan is welcome but does not go far enough in securing their safety, the MF has warned.
The court ruled that it would be "excessively harsh" to send three men, all originally subsistence farmers, back to live in refugee camps, or the slums around the capital, Khartoum.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and some two million displaced since Janjaweed Arab militia with Government backing four years ago starting driving African farming communities in Darfur from the land.
Most now survive in camps in conditions of abject poverty. Experts describe the living and health conditions of internally displaced persons as "appalling". Lord Justice Buxton, in his lead judgement, said the details "make frightening reading".
Crucially, however, the judges failed to uphold the mens' claim that they would be at risk of further persecution on arrival in Khartoum, as failed asylum seekers. Instead, they accepted the finding of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal that there was no evidence of such a danger.
The Home Office's Border and Immigration Agency says it believes non-Arab Darfuris could live safely in Khartoum and it is now considering seeking permission to appeal to the House of Lords.
In the past three years the MF has seen more than 250 Sudanese fleeing the country's escalating crisis. Eighty of those clients were referred in the past year alone.
The MF has documented a significant pattern of torture confirming reports by the Aegis Trust, the international group campaigning against genocide, about Darfuris being tortured in 'ghost' houses (private houses converted into torture centres) in Khartoum.
"That Sudan is a torturing state is undisputed. Yet the UK government contests expert evidence, much of which has been catalogued by in its own reports about human rights abuses in Sudan," said Leanne MacMillan, the MF's Director of Policy & External Affairs.
David Rhys Jones, the MF's Refugee Policy Officer, said: "Asylum applications from 900 people fleeing Sudan were refused last year. Until the Court of Appeal ruling, a worrying number had been detained pending return. Now it remains to be seen whether they will be released again.
"The Appeal Court's ruling took full cognisance of the appalling conditions in the camps for internally displaced people, which was heartening.
"But it is disappointing that the security situation for returning Dafuris was not properly addressed. There have been too many reports of failed asylum seekers from Darfur being picked up in Khartoum and tortured for that to be ignored."
click here to read MF's letter in the Guardian before the court ruling
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