FOUR Mongolians who failed to turn up at Shannon Airport for a weekend deportation flight may have left the State to escape immigration authorities.
Gardai said the whereabouts of the four, two men in their 20s and two girls aged nine and 10, were unknown last night.
They arrived in Ireland last Wednesday and were released from the custody of immigration officials the next day after an attempt to deport them failed.
The group may have travelled to England or to Northern Ireland, according to immigration sources. But it is unlikely that they will be able to leave the United Kingdom legally as their passports were confiscated by immigration officials.
The four were arrested last Wednesday a few hours after they arrived on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow. They had earlier flown from the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator. The men are not related to each other, but each is a brother of one of the girls.
They had about $5,000, valid visas from the Irish embassy in Beijing and a letter stating that they planned to attend an English language course in a Dublin school. Immigration officers granted each of them three months' residence in the State.
Within a few hours of their arrival, gardai noticed the group booking a flight to London. After they were arrested, they admitted that they had no intention of staying in Ireland and wanted to travel to England. They had no visa to do so. They did not seek asylum or refugee status, according to gardai.
The immigration authorities then cancelled their permission to be in the State. All four were destained overnight in Shannon Garda station, which is a place of detention under the Aliens Act.
Immigration officials attempted to place the group on a flight to Moscow early on Thursday. It was intended that they would get a connecting flight to Mongolia.
But they were taken off the flight on the advice of airline staff for safety reasons after one man resisted boarding by clinging to the rails of the steps to the aircraft.
Following consultations with the Department of Justice, the four were not further detained, according to immigration sources. The Department ordered that their passports be confiscated provided they gave an undertaking to return to Shannon Airport for a flight to Moscow on Saturday morning. They were due to be escorted on that flight by two immigration officers.
The four were last seen boarding a bus in Limerick on Friday evening according to immigration sources. It is believed the bus was destined for Dublin and the four may have travelled by ferry to Britain.
If detected in Britain without valid visas, it is likely that the four will be sent back to Ireland and then deported to Mongolia.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said she could not comment on individual cases.