SERV Salford Edmund Rice Volunteers and the Schools – an Advocacy Campaign

The SERV team is currently working with St Ambrose College and other Sixth Form groups within the Edmund Rice Network on the case of Mahamadou Souleymane, a refugee from Niger. Mahamadou’s brother, a British citizen, was murdered by a regional potentate (also a government minister) in order to seize the family’s land and he fled to the UK using his brother’s passport and return ticket to escape the same fate.  In the ‘culture of impunity’ which operates in Niger there is no state protection against violence perpetrated by those in power.

Here in the UK, Home Office decision-makers and Immigration Tribunal Judges fail to give due weight to conditions in other cultures and have dismissed supporting evidence painfully obtained and transmitted through SERV.  Mahamadou’s case has kept him in limbo, initially in immigration detention and now in Section 4 accommodation, for nearly five years.

If our current appeal fails, he is likely to be forcibly deported back into a situation of extreme danger.  Our hopes are currently pinned on persuading leading immigration counsel to take on his case pro bono. St Ambrose students have written, lobbying top law firms in London to urge them to take this case.

Wilf Hammond, SERV volunteer