05/03/2022
Holsbeek, closed centre for women:
“We live in total stress: we don’t know when they are coming to get us to expel us.”
“We don’t get a ticket anymore. They suddenly come and kidnap us.”
“They put us aside in a room and then when we come back to our room one of us has disappeared with her things.”
“It was her today, it might be me tomorrow.”
Closed centre 127bis:
“Two Senegalese were taken this week to be deported with an escort; nobody saw or understood anything.”
Closed centre Caricole:
“I had to go to the doctor. After the consultation, they took me to the “cachot” without explanation; the next day I was deported, bound and gagged.”
The “Office des Étrangers” is doubling its efforts to forcibly deport detainees who have been locked up for up to 9 months following the lifting of covid measures:
– more and more deportation “tickets” are being issued;
detainees are forbidden to inform friends, lawyers and family;
– no tickets and therefore no warning for forced evictions
– discreet kidnappings in the centres to prevent fellow detainees from alerting the outside world;
– reinforced escorts;
– presumably, at the airport police station, sedatives are diluted in drinks (2 testimonies corroborate this hypothesis);
– the lawyers are only informed once the deportation procedure has begun.
Thus, in recent weeks, to our knowledge, 3 women and 3 men have been deported with escorts, sometimes to countries they do not even know:
– An Ivorian man was deported to Benin;
– A Congolese woman was also deported to Benin.
They have to pay a ransom to be released in Benin and they don’t know anyone in the country they were deported to. We are trying to keep in touch with them…
STOP DEPORTATIONS!
