A late-night injunction preventing the deportation of five Cameroonians who were expected to be repatriated on Wednesday morning before dawn was extended on Thursday.
Justice Devindra Rampersad extended the injunction granted by Justice Carol Gobin on Tuesday night.
At Thursday’s hearing, Rampersad was told the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), has declared all five refugees.
The five – Bertha Taken Oben Etchi, Humphrey Nche Nangfor, Bringsluck Fru Nche, Achatie Magrate Affuelasong and Vanessa Njeck Enjek – fled their home country, after allegedly being threatened with death by military forces there, and were detained by immigration officials at Piarco International Airport in November. They lost their appeals for entry into TT both to the division and the Minister of National Security.
They applied for refugee status so they could be relocated to a country the UNHCR deems suitable for them. Interviews were done between December and last week.
However, their attorneys Om Lalla, Aaron Mahabir and Ilisha Manerikar approached the court for an injunction after the five, while waiting for a decision from the UNHCR, were “forcibly” removed from the Immigration Detention Centre in Aripo and taken to the Airport Suites Hotel to be deported to Cameroon.
They were expected to be put on a Copa Airlines flight at 3.37 am on Wednesday to Panama and then to Cameroon, despite the injunction being granted hours earlier.
In a pre-action letter, Lalla said the five are “political refugees who have been fleeing the threat of death from their homeland.
The State was represented by Senior Counsel Fyard Hosein and Kadine Matthew.
Hosein said he was not resisting the extension of the injunction but asked for time to file affidavits for the Immigration Division.
Bertha Takem Oben Etchi is a 30-year-old law graduate who ran a restaurant business before armed forces arrested her on “baseless allegations” that she was engaged in a relationship with Ambazonian fighters, one of the main separatist groups in Cameroon's English-speaking western regions.
The attorneys claimed she was arrested multiple times, tortured, denied medical care and her business was even set on fire. The location of her family is unknown and it is believed that they were killed.
Humphrey Nche Ngangfor and his son Bringsluck Fru Nche were both arrested and tortured because they sold cosmetic products from their store to English and French quarters of the country.
“They were tortured and detained by the military for weeks on end in dark cells and witnessed heinous killings. They fear that they too will die at the hands of the armed forces in Cameroon, as they suspect their family have been,” they said in a previous letter in November.
The other two asylum-seekers were reportedly also arrested, tortured, and witnessed the murders of their family members and neighbours.
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