Priviledge, Valerie and Lorraine Thulambo, who were living in Sheffield, have been in a detention centre for three months and are likely to be thrown out of the country in April.
They have told tales of torture, rape and the murder of close relatives by thugs from Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu (PF) party, but the UK Border Agency has decided that the account is wholly fabricated.
Because the Thulambos came to Britain on Malawian passports, they are being treated as Malawian citizens and are due to be deported to Malawi. Mrs Thulambo, 39, says her passport was fraudulently obtained and is convinced she and her girls will be sent from Malawi to Zimbabwe to face torture and persecution.
Immigration officials say there is no reason to believe her claim, but campaigners for Zimbabwean asylum seekers say that it has already happened at least once. Britain has not forcibly removed any failed asylum seeker to Zimbabwe since 2006, but supporters of the Thulambos accuse the agency of using Malawi as a backdoor.
Mrs Thulambo said her husband – a supporter of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) – was dragged to a police station and beaten so savagely in the face and genitals that he returned a broken man. She said she watched her brother die in agony after a Zanu (PF) gang, outraged by his refusal to reveal a wanted relative's whereabouts, forced him to drink rat poison. Speaking from Yarl's Wood detention centre, in Bedfordshire, she cried as she told The Times of a mob's visit to her Harare home.
As she was beaten and sexually assaulted, she said her daughters, then aged 11 and 9, were taken into another room and raped. It is a harrowing narrative that has won the family support from Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader and their former MP, and friends in Sheffield where they were active in their local church.
Mrs Thulambo was hoping to train as a nurse. Violet, 21, passed three A-levels and won a place at university to study law and Lorraine, 18, was at college. She wanted to become a social worker. A family friend, Helen Fisher, says the Thulambos have spent their time in Britain trying to improve their situation because they wanted to contribute to British society.
Such praise does not impress immigration officials. It is in my view entirely clear that [Mrs Thulambo] has presented a wholly fabricated account of her alleged persecution, an immigration judge said in 2004.
At the heart of the case is the Malawian passport used by Mrs Thulambo when she came to Britain in 2002. Her daughters came two years later. The Border Agency says the passport is genuine. Mrs Thulambo says it was obtained by bribing a Malawian official. It states that she was born in Malawi and is the daughter of Macca Thulambo, a Malawian. ButThe Timeshas seen birth and marriage certificates, whose authenticity is not disputed, which state that Mrs Thulambo was born in Harare, and that Macca was her husband.
She says that she had a clothes shop in Harare and that Macca – born in Zimbabwe to Malawian parents – was an accountant. They made frequent journeys between Zimbabwe and Malawi until the late 1990s.
With her brother and her husband dead, Mrs Thulambo says she was advised to seek a new life in Britain.
The prosecution's case has ammunition aplenty. Mrs Thulambo came to Britain on a Malawian passport, she did not appeal for asylum immediately and she used forged papers to obtain work as a carer.
Thus far, the Home Office has not been swayed by a 220-signature petition, a Facebook campaign that has 2,000 members and a prayer vigil at St Mark's Church in Sheffield.
When Lorraine learnt last month of the rejection of a judicial review application, she tried to hang herself in her room at Yarl's Wood. The family's final chance will come at a hearing on April 6 .
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says Zimbabwean citizens with fraudulently obtained Malawian passports will normally be delivered to the authorities in Zimbabwe.
Mrs Thulambo said: We finally felt safe and England was starting to feel like home. Now it feels like your country is throwing us to the lions.
The Times (UK)
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