UK Home Office Ordered To Bring Back Deported 5-Year-Old Rafeeq Atanda And His Mum

The UK Home Office has been ordered to bring five-year-old Rafeeq Atanda and his mum back to the UK after they were deported to Nigeria earlier this year. In January, the government decided to deport them despite a high-profile case. 

The boy was born in the UK, but spent his last week in the country held in a London immigration center with his mother before they were deported.

According to Reuters' reportage, a court ruled that the government must find Bola Fatumbi and her son Rafeeq Atanda by Thursday and bring them back to the UK or it will face contempt of court proceedings.

It is believed to be the first time that an immigration judge has ordered the government to retrieve asylum-seekers previously deported from the UK.

“In not taking into account the implications of Bola Fatumbi’s mental health for Rafeeq Atanda, and the risk of that degenerating in the Nigerian context and the likely consequences of removal, the Secretary of State failed to have regard for Rafeeq Atanda’s best interests as a primary consideration,” the judge said.

Justice Cranston said the boy’s best interests and the mother’s poor health were not taken into account and the family could be forced into poverty in Africa.

It would be recalled that Rafeeq's mother, Bola Fatumbi, 45, who was once sentenced to nine months in prison in October 2008 for using a false Dutch passport, claimed to have been in the UK illegally since 1991 and applied for asylum in 2010, because she feared persecution and discrimination as a single mother in Nigeria with no immediate family.  Her asylum application and appeal were rejected and she was forcefully deported to Nigeria in January 2015 with her 5-Year-Old son, Rafeeq.

Now, fate has smiled on them and in a very rare occurrence, the government has been ordered to find them and return them back to the UK.