Charity for asylum seekers shut down

Mar 12 2006 By The Sunday Sun

An organisation to help people in the North threatened with deportation has had to close its doors after funds dried up.

The National Coalition of Anti Deportation Campaigns has closed its office in Parliament Road, Middlesbrough, which served the North and Scotland.

Former North East co- ordinator Kath Sainsbury said it was sad that what was often the last refuge for asylum seekers threatened with expulsion had had to go.

But she pointed to a number of successful campaigns including that of Javed Ansari, an Indian seaman ordered back to his homeland after living in South Tyneside for 16 years.

Battle

Mr Ansari fought a successful three-year legal battle to stay in the UK and local people signed a petition to the Government calling on them to let him stay.

Kath said: "The saddest case was that of a Middlesbrough family, the Caushllaris, where the husband was Kosovan whilst his wife was of Roma ethnicity.

"She suffered persecution all her life and her children were discriminated against because they came from a mixed marriage. In the UK the boys were thriving."

The family were refused asylum and faced forced removal even though Mrs Caushllari was pregnant.

Kath said: "When the Immigration Service set removal directions, the shock impacted upon Mrs Caushllari so badly that she was taken into hospital as it was feared she would miscarry.

"A week after their removal the Government announced the Family Amnesty for people who arrived before October 2000 and whose children were born prior to 2003."