BBC reporter trails deported asylum seekers to the Congo

to their country of origin, but there wasn’t any because nobody seemed to have done any work following their progress once they are deported. “I spent four weeks doing preliminary preparation before my trip to Kinshasa. I had daily conversations with Congolese people at Harmonsworth Removal Centre who were waiting to be deported. I gave them my number so they could get in contact and enable me to find out what really happened to them. I was waiting to try any lead that presented itself. “An investigative journalist working in the Congo has a particularly hard time because everyone is so suspicious. Finding people willing to speak is difficult. In the end what came good was a Dutch NGO that has spent more time than anybody else trying to monitor what happens to returned asylum seekers. Working clandestinely and through an intermediary they found me two insiders – one from the secret services and one from the immigration department. “The man from the secret services gave testimony that was extremely useful and is in the programme. He probably tells us more about what is happening than even the asylum seekers who spoke about their experiences themselves because he knows what the Government’s intentions are. European countries say there is no evidence to suggest that people are singled out because they are asylum seekers. But my source from the secret services said ‘we are actually targeting asylum seekers who have been abroad and who we feel have besmirched the name of our country by talking about the Government and our country’. “We reported on one small NGO that receives very little funding from the European Union to try and monitor people as they arrive at the airport, but they can’t be there for every flight that arrives. “If monitoring is going to be done properly there needs to be a long-term follow-up project. Until that’s in place I don’t think European countries can say it’s safe to send people back to a country which is as unstable and as difficult as the Congo.” Cuffe’s report goes out on 8 December at 9.05am on the World Service. It can also be listened to online at www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/ assignment.shtml  Press Gazette