Reaction muted as Izevbekhai family deported to Nigeria

THE MOST high-profile immigration battle in Irish legal history ended early yesterday when Nigerian woman Pamela Izevbekhai and her two daughters Naomi and Jemima were deported on foot of an order signed in November 2005 by the then minister for justice Michael McDowell.

Reaction to the deportation of the Sligo-based family was muted yesterday, with both the mayor of Sligo Cllr Rosaleen O’Grady and local Fine Gael TD John Perry refusing to comment.

Shane Donnelly, a friend of the family and a founder member of the Let them Stay group, which had lobbied on behalf of the family, said: “I just hope that she is safe and that the girls are safe back in Nigeria”.

Ms Izevbekhai’s six-year battle, which involved more than 20 High Court appearances and an appeal to the Supreme Court, ended last month when the European Court of Human Rights found that her rights had not been violated.

She had consistently maintained that she feared her two daughters would be subjected to genital mutilation if they were sent back to Nigeria. However, her case suffered a major setback in March 2009 when it emerged that documents she used in her legal battle had been forged.

Ms Izevbekhai recently received a letter from the authorities telling her she would be deported if she had not left the country by July 18th.

She and her children were arrested at Globe House centre for asylum seekers in Sligo at about 1.30am yesterday and taken to Dublin airport, where they were put on a commercial flight to Amsterdam.

They were put on a connecting flight to Lagos around lunchtime. It is understood the family was accompanied by a Sligo-based member of the Garda National Immigration Bureau.

Among those who had publicly supported Ms Izevbekhai’s campaign were Minister for Justice Alan Shatter, who in December 2008 had, as his party’s spokesman on children, appealed to the then minister Dermot Ahern to apply “basic humanitarian principles”, and allow the family to stay in Ireland given that another daughter had died after being subjected to mutilation.

In recent days the Minister expressed disappointment, saying it was clear from court proceedings that she had “substantially misled many of those people who publicly expressed concern about her alleged circumstances”.

The campaign lost momentum in 2009 when it emerged that documents relating to Ms Izevbekhai’s claim that her first-born daughter, Elizabeth, had died aged 17 months as a result of female genital mutilation were forged. Her legal team withdrew and public support waned.

Ms Izevbekhai said at the time she was unaware that her husband Tony had forged the documents because he could not access the genuine papers, and she has continued to insist she did have a daughter who died from blood loss as a result of such mutilation.

Yesterday her supporters asked why it had been necessary to “pluck two small children from their beds in the middle of the night”.