Asylum seekers the Nukajem family are waiting in Yarls Wood detention to find out if they are to be sent home to Cameroon. Read their story...

Friday 7 November 2008 11am

“All factors considered, removal can’t take place,” said Hani Zubeidi, the Nukajem’s solicitor.
Julie Sandra has diarrhoea and yesterday the doctor was unsure about giving her anti-malarial tablets as they may not be effective and could even make her more ill. The doctor advised further health tests for today.
“The whole thing is a complete waste of public money,” Zubeidi continued, “It costs £400 a day to keep a family in detention, that’s about £3,000 to date and it’s exactly the same situation as before.
“The Home Office have a policy, Operation Merlin, which says the welfare of the child is paramount- they have to administer methloquin [anti-malaria medication] for two to three weeks before removal. They only detained the family five days before planned deportation, the same as before when the family were detained. It’s a complete waste of time”
He hopes to have the Nukajems released by lunchtime today or he will call for a judicial review.
The family wait in hope. Fred described the constant waiting: “It’s so stressful. The children don’t really understand what is going on but they are crying through the night and banging their heads against the pillows while they cry. Sometimes the sit up and bang their backs against the wall. The doctor said this was because of stress. A lot of children do it.”
Many children also have similar stomach complaints to Julie Sandra, according to Zubeidi, who said that there has been a bout of infections in the centre for about 6 months now.
Fred said: “There are 100 families here at moment; it’s a horrible, depressing place to be. What’s more, the internet has closed down as well- there are lots of sites we can’t access, my MP for example, or a news site about Uganda. I can’t get my mail.
“We are just keeping our fingers crossed and really hoping everything goes according to the solicitor’s plan today.”

Thursday 6 November 2008 2.19pm

Fred’s terrified family have been taken back to Yarls Wood detention centre. Again, they anxiously wait for unknown officials to decide their fate.

Seven immigration officers came for them at 6.30am on Wednesday morning. Fred said “The same woman who was there last time told me: ‘This is not your country. We’re here to send you back- we don’t want you here’.” Their flight out of the UK is booked for 10th November.

The children have still not had any anti-malarial medication and baby Julie Sandra has been losing weight- possibly because she is teething.

Fred’s solicitor, Hani Zubeidi, is also in the dark. He is unclear about why the authorities think family’s situation has changed since they were released last time when the children were unfit to travel. “The Home Office haven’t communicated with me at all," he said. The family are also baffled, and Zubeidi has written to immigration to request some urgent answers.

On the solicitor’s advice Julie Sandra is booked in to see a detention centre doctor at 3.30pm this afternoon. If she is deemed fit, Fred will start giving her the anti-malaria drugs, although if they are flown out of the country on schedule it may not be in time for the baby to build up adequate resistance to the disease.

Despite his family’s fear, Fred seemed calm, possibly in denial. “I’m not so bothered about these problems- I know I’m not going back,” he explained, “It is better to be in prison here then to be there, and we’ll never get on that plane.”

Friday 4.25pm

Great news- the family are going to be released. Elated, Fred was lost for words: “Honestly, I don't know what to say. My heart stopped when I was told. I think I suffered palpations but they have calmed down now.”

A solicitor from campaign group Medical Justice has convinced the authorities that the children are unfit to travel. The chances they would get malaria are too high.

The family were told of the last minute reprieve only moments ago. Sandra said, “They have told us the flight has been cancelled. I am really very happy. I know it's not finished but it is something at least.”

They will return to their home in Stoke-on-Trent tonight but their fight to remain in the country is far from over. They wait to see if they can launch an appeal. If not, they may end up back on Yarls Wood in a matter of weeks.

Friday 3pm

The Nukajems have made front page news in the Stoke Sentinel which they hope will help their case. They have heard of other families being saved from deportation when eleventh hour protests have persuaded a sympathetic pilot against take-off.

I have been told that none of the children have had anti-malarials. Out of country, people with a natural immunity can become susceptible to the disease within 3 months. In Cameroon malaria accounts for more than 40% of deaths of children under the age of five and at just five months old Julie Sandra is at her most vulnerable. Babies of her age have not yet built up their immune systems.

”When we got here the children were not well, Fred explained, “I told them if you give a child these tablets when they are not well they are likely to get really ill. The doctor just looked at them and said they were fine.” The children had been checked over on arrival but the parents were unconvinced. They were told Julie Sandra has colic.

Even if the family had accepted the drugs it takes about two and a half weeks for a baby to build up protection. They have only been in detention since Monday.

Conversations have begun with Fred's local MP. If there's no court order then she is their only hope.

Friday 10.45am

Fred picked up the phone almost before the first ring was out. He's impatient for news. He has been on the phone to the solicitor several times already this morning who apparently thinks everything will be OK. I wonder how much this is the family's insistent interpretation rather than the solicitor's actual words.

There is no word from the court yet.

Friends are trying to contact the local MP in Stoke-on-Trent who has helped other asylum seeking families in the past.

Thursday evening

Yesterday's panicked phone calls reaped temporary reward this morning when a Rotherham based solicitor agreed to investigate the possibilities of obtaining an emergency injunction.

A few hours later, hope was replaced by desperate disappointment when, having read the papers, the solicitor found there was no case without new information. “But we have already told them everything,” Fred sounded exhausted.

“Honestly it's been horrible,”he went on, “when the solicitor told me she couldn't take it, my heart just dropped, again. I was so sure she would take it.”

All day Fred has been sending urgent faxes back and forth to the European Court of Human Rights through a second solicitor in a latch ditch attempt to halt deportation. The family anxiously await the reply tomorrow.

“I know we are going nowhere though. We will resist this to the last.”

Thursday

Immigration control stormed into the Nukajem’s home at dawn on Monday morning. Six officials gave 29 year old Sandra just minutes to collect clothes and nappies for her three small children, while a female officer refused to let her husband Fred do anything more than dress. The terrified family were forced into a police van which took them to Yarls Wood detention centre.

As part of the New Statesman’s No place for Children campaign, I will be in daily contact with the family, reporting the appalling story of their detention and probable deportation back to Cameroon come Saturday morning.

At 5 months old, Julie-Sandra doesn’t understand what is going on but knows something is wrong. “She hasn’t stopped crying since they came, and she won’t feed,” Sandra told me quietly when I met her in the detention centre’s sparse visiting area. “I have taken her to the health centre three times but the nurse won’t even take her temperature”. Twins Josepha and Grace, 2, were also fractious, reaching out and wailing when either parent moved too far away.

“I don't understand why this is happening,” said Fred, visibly distressed, “they said we could appeal.” The official line is that they have “used or attempted to use deception” and there is ‘no reasonable alternative’ to their being detained until the early hours on Saturday. Neither parent understands this explanation and no one has explained. It’s a cruel twist as only 3 weeks ago NASS reinstated Fred’s support and allowed him to live in the family home in Stoke-on-Trent, a right he has been fighting for since December last year. They were just getting used to all living together.

“There are 86 families in there are the moment, I see so many children,” Sandra told me. “This is not a place for children.” All of hers were born in the UK and on any other Wednesday she would be picking them up from crèche, which they attend twice a week. Fred would then take them for a walk before tea. Instead they look tired and tear-stained as another visitor tries to entice a smile with a packet of crisps and tickle.

With no legal representation, deportation looks inevitable, even though they have right to appeal. They have nothing with them to prove this as their immigration documents lie in their empty house, along with the other belongings they were not allowed to take. Yesterday, Sheffield-based support group ‘No Barriers, No Borders’ were desperately phoning around to find a legal aid solicitor to appeal deportation and apply to get the family out of Yarls Wood.

“We will not go back.” Fred is adamant. He started to cry as he showed me the stump of his wedding finger where he told me the secret police chopped it off as a warning when he tried to leave their employment where he had been paid to infiltrate opposition groups.

“What will happen to my children? I will definitely be killed. I worked for the security forces and I know how they operate - they will make it look like a car crash or something.” As a member of an independence organisation declared illegal by the Cameroon government, Sandra also fears for her life. “She will be lynched,” Fred went on, “her uncle has already been killed.

“But no one is listening. They won’t look at my children. All they ask is ‘are you fit to fly?’”

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