Genocide that forced millions to flee

ABOUT three million people were killed or displaced by the long campaign of war and genocide in Darfur, Western Sudan.

Government forces and Arab militias known as the Janjaweed burned villages and carried out mass murders, rapes and torture in the region. The Arab word Janjaweed means ‘a man with a gun on a horse.’

Millions of civilians fled into neighbouring Chad or UN refugee camps on the border, and official statistics showed more than 5,000 Sudanese people claimed asylum in Britain between 2003 and 2010.

In 2010, the year Salih Khater is understood to have come to the UK as a refugee, 573 Sudanese people claimed asylum and 377 were allowed to stay in this country. Many had stowed away in boats, trucks and lorries to reach the UK, although in 2016 a Sudanese man Abdul Haroun walked the 31-mile length of the Channel Tunnel, and was later granted asylum.

Sudan is a former British colony, but asylum claims and study or work visa applications from its citizens are subject to the same rules as those from other countries.

Once a person is granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK, they can apply for citizenship once they have been in the country five years.