Uncertainty for Iraqi asylum seeker

Decisions on Iraqi applications are on hold

An Iraqi asylum seeker speaks to BBC News Online about the uncertainty he faces in Britain while his case is processed.

Iraqi Nihad Aziz is in an asylum seeker's limbo.

He has survived the journey from northern Iraq, through Turkey and across to the UK in a lorry but he does not know what the future holds.

Decisions on approving or rejecting Iraqi asylum seekers' applications have been put on hold since the start of the recent conflict.

Whether or not applicants will be "removed" back to Iraq is also under consideration by the government.

But Iraqis need only look at the example of Afghanistan, when the UK government changed its policy and started removing Afghan applicants after the US-led war.

Militia

What is certain is that Nihad, 31, is desperately adamant that he does not want to go back to Iraq.

"I don't want to go back to my country because I don't feel safe and I have a problem with some people in Iraq," he told BBC News Online.

Today I'm not eating anything because I don't have money

Nihad Aziz

"There is also no government, no police or anything. Why go back?

"Every day you see the problems in Iraq, children killed, people killed, cholera, no medicines, you see it on television."

Nihad, who worked with his father in Iraq, said he did not know what had become of his family during the war.

His home town is now under the control of Kurdish troops - who he says would not take kindly to the return of a former militia member who had been paid to fight the Kurds by Saddam Hussein's regime.

Nihad used his life savings of 7,000 US dollars to be smuggled across Europe in a lorry to get to the UK.

"I want to stay in England, I'd like to stay here. I want a good future," he said.

"I don't want to take money from the British Government, I want to work here with my own hands."

Support problems

Nihad says he has not heard anything from the Home Office since his initial asylum application in February.

In a further complication the £38 support Nihad has been receiving for food since he arrived in the UK has stopped.

The Home Office says there is no reason why the status of an Iraqi applicant should have changed.

But whatever the reason, it makes life harder for Nihad.

"I don't have any money," he said. "My vouchers are cancelled. Today I'm not eating anything because I don't have money. I am very worried about going back to Iraq."