Posted on 03/11/2002 11:56:12 AM PST by TheMole
Canadian deportees dumped in war zone
Joint effort with U.S.: Unwelcome Africans left in Somalia in 'removal process'
Brian Hutchinson
National Post
Canada has quietly begun mass deportations of illegal aliens back to Africa in co-operation with U.S. immigration authorities and private security firms.
According to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the new deportation process was devised as a means to "tighten security" after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Four such deportations have been completed to date.
In the latest "joint removal process," in February, a group of people of Somali origin, including six from Canada, were flown to the country's war-torn capital, Mogadishu, where they were left to fend for themselves.
Some of the deportees had never been to Mogadishu before; many had been raised in North America and were unfamiliar with their native country.
Rejean Cantlen, a spokesman with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, said four of the Somalis deported from Canada were "serious criminals."
The other two were "in violation of Canada's immigration act."
People in the latter category include failed refugee claimants and people whose visitor permits have expired.
The six people of Somali origin had been removed from Canadian detention facilities and transported to an American military base in Niagara Falls, N.Y. They were then loaded onto a chartered Boeing 757 aircraft, along with 25 other Somalis who had been living in the United States. Their feet were tied and their arms bound.
Under the watch of 15 private security officers, the group was flown to Somalia and left in Mogadishu, which many consider to be the world's most dangerous city, and a suspected hideaway for Muslim terrorists.
"We are extremely concerned for these people," says Mahamoud Hagi-Aden, a Somali-Canadian and a consultant to the Somali Centre for Family Services, based in Ottawa.
"It was absolutely inappropriate for them to just be dropped in Mogadishu, where there is a great deal of killing and mayhem. People from certain [Somali] clans are targeted by members of other clans. It's totally unsafe for anyone who doesn't know their way around."
The deported Somalis will "likely be singled out as spies or travellers with money and will face harassment or worse," according to a source quoted Thursday in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, a Minnesota newspaper.
Mr. Hagi-Aden suggested that the joint removal was undertaken covertly, in order not to attract attention. "We work very closely with Immigration Canada, and are usually informed about deportations. In this case, we didn't hear anything. I think it runs contrary to Canadian values and principles."
Last month's mission to Somalia was the fourth joint removal operation since Sept. 11, Mr. Cantlen said.
Three previous joint removals involved people of Nigerian origin and left from the same Niagara Falls, N.Y., airbase. In the last of those flights, in January, there were 70 Nigerians, 22 of them deported from Canada.
All the missions were concluded "successfully," he said.
He could not explain why the latest deportees were left alone in Mogadishu, amid internecine conflict.
It was up to people hired privately to see that the latest batch of deportees arrived there safely, he said.
Mr. Cantlen admitted that deportees "are usually escorted to their countries of origin by our officers," but that "as a matter of policy, we don't send our escorts to Somalia ... because of the situation there."
Asked if Somalia was considered too dangerous a place for Canadians to tread, Mr. Cantlen hesitated.
"That's a difficult question to answer. I can't say."
bhutchinson@nationalpost.com
No Molsons there, heh Hoser?
What's worse is that only 6 of the 25 Somalians with free plane tickets were from Canada. Ditto with only 22 of the 70 Nigerians. There were too many empty seats on those planes.
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