Keep the Nzumvira Family together in the UK


Benoit is a 21 year old Hutu from the Kigali area of Rwanda who is
due for removal on Kenyan Airways flight no. KQ101 on Monday 27th
August 2007 at 20.00 hrs.

On 9th July 2007 Benoit had just completed his first year at sixth
form college in Uxbridge when he was arrested and detained. He is now
at Oakington Immigration Removal Centre.

He will if deported leave behind him his 12 year old brother who is,
in effect orphaned and in foster care in the UK.

Benoit is the only constant in his brother's life since infancy and
if Benoit is removed, his brother will have no other family remaining
in the UK.

Benoit is being asked to return and make a life for himself in a
country which he left in the most terrible of circumstances when he
was only 8 years old. Because of his father's political involvement
in the old regime (member of the MRND party) before the war, Benoit
fears for his life if he is returned. Moreover, he is afraid of being
drafted in the army as Rwanda still fights the rebels from the DR
Congo.

Their family fled to the DR Congo when the war in Rwanda started in
1994. The family stayed in a refugee camp until 1996 when their camp
was attacked and the family members became separated. Gerard and
Marguerite, the older brother and sister, went to live in Belgium in
1998 and 1999 and have Belgian citizenship after being granted
refugee status there. The Red Cross have been unable to trace their
parents and personal efforts to trace them have also been fruitless
so far.

The agent who arranged Benoit and his younger brother's escape to the
UK in 2003 was insistent that Benoit tell an almost entirely
fictional story for his asylum claim. Young, vulnerable and not
knowing any better, Benoit followed the agent's instructions and
stuck to the fake story as best he could throughout various Home
Office interviews and then throughout the appeal, which was dismissed
in January 2004 due to the various improbabilities and contradictions.

However, the the immigration judge recommended Benoit be allowed to
stay until his younger brother turns 18. The Home Office refused to
carry out the judge's recommendation, saying that it does not have
statutory effect and that "contact between your client [Benoit] and
his brother if not sufficiently strong".

But by sticking to the story he had been given, Benoit lost
credibility and this has remained a problem for him in all his later
dealings with the Home Office.

This is what really happened to Benoit's family ; when their refugee
camp in the DR Congo was attacked and the family members dispersed,
Benoit, his younger brother and their godfather went to Malawi where
they spent most of the years from 1996-2003 in Dzaleka refugee camp.
Benoit's godfather also tried to run a business in Lilongo town,
which was destroyed by local people who resented the Rwandan presence.

Life in Malawi was very hard and several attempts were made forcibly
to deport Rwandan refugees. In 2003 when there was another round of
forced removals, Benoit's godfather paid an agent to arrange for the
boys to seek asylum in the UK. Benoit and his younger brother arrived
in the UK in September 2003 on a false Malawi passport.

Benoit says he was himself still a minor at the time but the Home
Office refused to accept this, even though a medical report confirmed
that he was likely to be 16/17 years old. He was treated as though
he was an adult and separated from his younger brother, who was
placed with foster parents. Although the adjudicator in 2004 had
recommended that Benoit be allowed to stay in the UK until his
younger brother turns 18, the Home Office have rejected his
recommendation, even though this situation may well never have arisen
if Benoit had been treated as a minor at the beginning of his claim.

He has had great difficulty coping with events and suffers from acute
anxiety and nightmares. He is terrified of being returned to the
country from which he fled in the most terrible of circumstances when
he was still a child and broken hearted by being forced to leave his
little brother, for whom he was primary caretaker for seven years.

What you can do to help!

Immediate
1.) Please send urgent faxes to Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith, Secretary of
State for the Home Office asking that Benoit and his younger brother
both to be allowed to make their lives in the UK together on a
permanent basis or for them to be allowed eventually to be reunited
with their brother and sister in Belgium. Please use the attached
"model letter" BenoitMinister.doc and/or you can copy/amend/write
your own version (if you do so, please remember to include Benoit's
Home Office Reference Number B1144000.

Fax : 020 7035 3262 (00 44 20 7035 3262 if you are faxing from outside UK)

Please wait till Monday to fax Kenya Airlines
2.) Fax Kenya Airlines. Please use the attached "model letter"
BenoitAirline.doc and/or you can copy/amend/write your own version
(if you do so, please remember to include Benoit's removal flight
details : 27th August 2007 at 20.00 on KQ101)

Please let the Benoit Nzumivra Must Stay Campaign know of any faxes
you have sent:
Benoit Nzumivra Must Stay Campaign
c/o 6 Swann's Terrace
Cambridge
CB1 3LX
 dave@rocketvision.net


Source for this Message:
Benoit Nzumivra Must Stay Campaign