Asylum children deported

The four children were the focus of a public campaign

A family of Kurdish asylum seekers who were detained in Scotland for more than a year have been deported.

Yurdugal Ay and her four children, aged between seven and 14, were returned to Germany on a flight on Tuesday morning.

The family spent their last night on UK soil at the Tinsley House Immigration Removal Centre in Gatwick, London.

They were moved there on Friday from Dungavel Detention Centre in Strathaven, Lanarkshire, where they had been held since leaving their home of three years in Northfleet, Kent.

Lawyers acting for the family claimed the move was in breach of international law.

Scottish Socialist MSP Rosie Kane was also flying to Berlin on Tuesday morning to make the family's case for asylum to the German authorities.

The Ay family made and lost a series of applications for refugee status in Germany over many years since they first arrived from Turkey in 1988.

We have got to throw aside the asylum laws, throw aside international boundaries to rescue these children Rosie Kane Socialist MSP

After the applications failed they travelled clandestinely in a lorry to Britain in June 1999.

Moves to deport the family began after it was discovered that the Germans had already repeatedly dealt with their asylum claim.

Yurdugal Ay's final appeal to remain in the UK was rejected by the House of Lords last Thursday.

Her daughter Beriwan made an emotional appeal to the Home Secretary David Blunkett on Monday, asking to be allowed to remain in the UK.

Speaking from a phone inside the Gatwick removal centre, she said she wanted "nothing else" but to stay in Britain.

The Ay family are Turkish Kurds who fear they will be persecuted if returned home via Germany.

Asylum seekers board the plane at Stansted

The children's father has not been heard of since he was sent home in similar circumstances.

The Home Office said Germany had accepted responsibility to consider the family's claim.

"The UK Government will provide a safe haven to those genuinely fleeing persecution if we are the country that is responsible for doing so," said a spokesman.

"But there must be a fair and effective way of ensuring that only those people with a right to be here are allowed to stay in the UK.

"Having a fair system for all means that those with no right to be here must leave the UK."

However, Ms Kane, a list MSP for Glasgow, described the case as "a disgrace".

"We have got to throw aside the asylum laws, throw aside international boundaries to rescue these children," she said.