'Torture awaits' Darfur deportees

Hatem Hussein was arrested, tortured and expelled from Sudan

Refugees from Darfur claim they face torture and death if they are forced to return to Sudan.

But the Home Office says it is perfectly safe for failed asylum seekers from Darfur to return to other parts of the country.

At a protest outside Parliament, some of those affected spoke about the suffering they had endured.

Hatem Hussein says he is plagued by constant nightmares of the 72-hours he spent back in his native Sudan in October 2004.

"They took me straight from the plane for torturing," Mr Hussein said of the Sudanese security police.

The 27-year-old was forced to fly from London to Khartoum after his immigration lawyer failed to meet the deadline to file an appeal of his rejected asylum bid. The security police met the plane.

"I cannot remember those days without crying, I cannot remember my country without crying," he says of the beatings he suffered during an interrogation session, in which he says he was accused of being a British spy.

Mr Hussein explains how his hands and feet were bound, he was tied to a ceiling fan and assaulted repeatedly before being put in a small room filled with noxious gas.

He was told over and over that as a black Darfuri, he was not truly Sudanese.

Abandon Sudan deportations

After three days, and without explanation, a bloodied and exhausted Mr Hussein was put on a plane back to Britain, where he spent three months in an immigration detention centre. He was released - and started the entire asylum application process again, this time with the help of the Aegis Trust group that works to prevent genocide.

Almost two years later, his case is still pending.

Yes, here I have freedom of speech, but I feel like a prisoner in a free country Asylum seeker Sadiq Abakar

Aegis has independently investigated Mr Hussein's story and says he and a handful of others should provide all the evidence the Home Office needs to change its position on deportations to Sudan.

The Court of Appeal ruled in April that the government could not deport Darfuris based on humanitarian grounds, given the state of the refugee camps in Khartoum, but the Home Office is appealing that decision - raising the ire of human rights advocates.

Speaking in a whisper at the protest outside Parliament, Mr Hussein says his mother was killed by the janjaweed Arab militia in 2002, leaving him with no family.

"It was happening long before people talked about it here," Mr Hussein says of the violence.

Death and fear

In a crowd of more than 70 Darfuri asylum seekers who gathered - all of them men - each has a story of death and fear.

Sadiq Abakar says he faces the same fate in Sudan as his murdered brother

Sadiq Abakar, 29, was arrested in 1998 along with his brother while attending a demonstration against the Sudanese government's backing of the Arab militias.

"My brother was killed in that jail, I got out and escaped Sudan," he says, adding that his asylum application was rejected two months ago and is now under appeal.

He says that despite risking his life to come to Britain, he cannot work or build a life and fears being handed back to the authorities who he holds responsible for his brother's death.

"Yes, here I have freedom of speech, but I feel like a prisoner in a free country."