A family living in Wexford for almost three years has been told it is to be deported back to Tajikistan.
Mr Pavel Kolesnikov, his wife Mila and their three children, aged between four and 14, have been given until Friday to consent to their deportation or make a case for a temporary reprieve. Their application for asylum was rejected, as was an appeal to be allowed remain on humanitarian grounds.
The family's wish to stay in Ireland is supported by the principal of the school attended by their seven-year-old daughter, Angela, as well as friends they have made in Ireland, local TDs and the Bishop of Ferns, Dr Brendan Comiskey.
Friends point out that the children speak with Wexford accents and have become integrated into the local community. Angela's 14-year-old brother, Rustam, attends the local CBS secondary school and plays hurling and Gaelic football. The youngest child, Eddi, has not yet started school.
Dr Comiskey said the Kolesnikovs should be allowed to remain permanently, to give the children a stable future. "When a family is here for three years, it creates its own new reality. Three years in a child's life is nearly all of a child's life."
Mr Kolesnikov, who spoke no English when the family arrived in Ireland in March 1999, works at the health and fitness centre in the Ferrycarrig Hotel, outside Wexford town. He says the political situation in Tajikistan is extremely unstable and he fears for the safety of his wife and children if they are forced to return.
He hopes the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, will give their case attention. "I am afraid because we are very small people. The Minister has very much work." He fears his family will be overlooked.
Angela attends the Mercy School on St John's Road, where her best friend in first class is Niamh Duggan. Niamh's mother, Ms Myriam Duggan, has befriended the Kolesnikovs and is campaigning for them to be allowed to stay.
"Rustam and Angela are intelligent children who are doing very well at school and they need to be allowed to settle. Angela is very bright; she acts as a translator for her parents and she knows the danger they're in. She should be thinking about Santa Claus and not about whether they're going to be put on a plane and sent back," she said.
"It will break my daughter's heart if her best friend is taken away from her. If they were here for three weeks and not three years, it might be different. But it doesn't seem to be human to think of sending them back now." Sister Siobhβn Hayden, the principal of the Mercy School, said Angela had arrived "without a word of English". She initially was "a withdrawn child" and appeared to be slow to trust people, but she had grown in confidence and was now doing very well in class.
Sister Siobhβn has written to Mr O'Donoghue supporting the family's request to be allowed stay in Ireland. "I know they want to stay and I do believe it's not safe for them to go back."
Local TDs supporting the family's case include the Labour Party deputy leader, Mr Brendan Howlin, and Mr John Browne of Fianna Fβil. Mr Browne said he had passed on letters from Bishop Comiskey and others to the Minister, who had promised to deal with the case sympathetically.
"The family are well settled and are not a burden on the State. I hope John O'Donoghue will give them an early Christmas present by deciding they can stay in Wexford and make a new life for themselves," he said.
Mr Kolesnikov says he is not worried about himself but believes his wife and children would have "no future" in Tajikistan. The family was economically well off there but had left because of the political situation and, as part of a tiny Christian minority, they were not safe, he said.
A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said it did not give specific advice on Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan, although its policy on the region was being reviewed.
However, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office "strongly" advises UK citizens not to travel to Tajikistan. "British nationals currently living in Tajikistan are advised to leave. The situation in the region is unpredictable," it warns on its website, www.foc.gov.uk.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice and Law Reform said it did not comment on individual cases.
