‘Why am I a victim again in a country that calls itself humanitarian?’
Woman tortured in Sudan tells of her anger at being forced to undergo another harrowing ordeal in Yarl’s Wood detention centre
A torture victim who was unlawfully detained after she sought safety in the UK has told how her arrest and confinement by British authorities caused her to relive every horrifying moment of the rape and violence she suffered in her homeland.
In a harrowing interview, the 42-year-old asylum-seeker has described how being held at the notorious Yarl’s Wood detention centre gave her such vivid flashbacks of her brutal treatment that she believed she was back in the hands of rapist militiamen in Sudan.
As reported by The Independent yesterday, a High Court judge in a case brought against the Home Secretary, Theresa May, branded the woman’s detention “truly disgraceful” and ruled that she is entitled to damages.
The Independent has now seen documents showing that a doctorat the detention centre notified immigration officials of concerns that she may have been avictim of torture – sending a “body map” detailing 17 injuries including a gunshot wound and scars caused by knife wounds, and beatings with sticks and metal rods.
But officials wrote back saying her detention remained “appropriate, in these very exceptional circumstances”, and told her she would stay in detention for another month, when she was due to be removed from the country.
The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told The Independent: “I was completely horrified. Everything that had happened came back to me. It felt like what had happened in myhomelandwas happening again. I was right there, back in Sudan.
“I felt the pain of my familybeing killed as if theyhad just died. Every moment, I feared that I was about to be raped and tortured again. I was terrified.”
Janjaweed militiamen killed the woman’s father and kidnapped her mother in Darfur in 2004. Her fiancé was then killed and she was shot in the leg and raped. State security agents later arrested her and raped her again. She was detained again in 2007 and repeatedly raped.
She fled to England, but claimed asylum in the Republic of Ireland. After her claim was rejected, she went back to England but the Home Office certified that she should be returned to Ireland.
She was detained in the UK inAugust 2013 butwas released after a doctor said she could be a victim of torture. It was during a second period of deten- tion from December 2013 to January 2014 that another doctor’s warning was rejected. The Government’s own rule is that torture survivors generally should not be incarcerated.
The woman said: “I was frightened for my safety all the time that I was in detention. At night in the detention centre, I could hear people screaming. The sound of jangling keys and people runningin the corridors was just like in Sudan. I began to believe people were being tortured and that they would come for me.
“The flashbacks were so powerful. People kept checking on me, but I couldn’t look at them. I closed my eyes and I held my hands over my ears.
“This country is supposed to be a humanitarian country, but after everything I had been through, I shouldn’t have been treated like that.
“There is much to value in this country and people care about the humanitarian crisis abroad, but thewayI have been treated was disgraceful.
“I can never forget what happened to me in Sudan, but I had started to feel more comfortable with the past. My detention brought it all back and I am more fragile because of it. I cannot sleep at night. I am still frightened for my safety.”
The judge in the case, Mr Justice Collins, said the Home Secretaryhad the final decision on whether the woman should be allowed to stay.
The woman’s solicitor, Krisha Prathepan, said: “We tried very hard, even up to the day of the hearing, to settle this case as it should not have got to this stage. The Home Office refused to withdraw her certification despite accepting that the woman had suffered repeated rape and torture.”
Toufique Hossain, director of public law at the woman’s solicitors, Duncan Lewis, said: “Tragic images of refugees in Europe focus our minds on those who are abroad but this case highlights the treatment of refugees already here.”
The Home Office said: “We are disappointed with the court’s verdict. We are currently examining its implications and considering our options to appeal.”