Halnya thanks SiC

Short, powerful video in which a Ukrainian irregular makes a cry from the heart -- and thanks Strangers into Citizens.

You help us, you encourage us, you force us to believe that something will change.

Mr W's story

W arrived in the UK in November 1996 after a three month journey from China. He travelled with another 213 Chinese and spent at least 2 weeks inside a container on a ship.

‘到英国了 !’- ‘Here is the UK!’ - W can remember vividly when his friend shouted out while the ship was docking. The payment for the journey was 180,000 Yuen, about £15,000. After staying two and half months in different places, W applied for asylum. He started working soon after the application. His first job was in a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, the job was 12 hours a day 6 days a week. Keen to repay his debt, W offered to work on his day off in the same restaurant. He was earning £190 a week. From this wage he paid £25 a week for his bed, a space in a bunk bed in a room shared with other 4 to 6 Chinese. He also spent about £13 a week on his bus fare to work, the journey took about 1 hour each way.

It took W 7 to 8 years to repay the debt he owed to the snakehead, the trafficker. He sent part of his earnings home to support his family. Through his contribution, his children, a boy and a girl who are now in their twenties, were able to go to school and finish their high school education. W has not seen his family since 1996.

W became ill in 2001 with hepatitis B. He was in and out of hospital between 2001 and 2003. He was working on and off during this period but was forced to take a 6 months break when his condition deteriorated. Within the first few months, he used up all his savings and had to move in with friends. The understanding was that he would move out once he recovered and was able to return to work. Nevertheless, after one and half years, his situation did not improve but worsened. His friends then expressed concern over his illness and wrote to the local council to seek assistance for W: ‘I could not offer any place for him (W) since he has serious health problem now. I am afraid his disease would affect us…’. However, without a regular income, W could not afford to move out and continued to lodge in his friends’ flat and was forced to borrow money from them to live on.

Between 2003 and 2007, W continued to work part-time in catering and other temporary jobs. However, never managed to secure a full-time job due to his illness and his frequent hospital appointments. In 2008 his condition deteriorated further and he was admitted to hospital in early 2008. W was diagnosed with a malignant liver tumour. The lesion was treated during his admission and W was assessed as needing a liver transplant. Unfortunately, the hospital could not list W for the operation because of his status as a failed asylum seeker; W’s asylum application had been refused in 2003. Although he had paid National Insurance contributions between 1996 and 2003, W’s legal status meant that he had no entitlement to NHS treatment. The specialist liver transplant social worker then referred W to the Refugee Council to seek other assistance.

W has been living in London since 1996, and during his asylum application between 1996 and 2003 he was working legally and making National Insurance contributions. Despite this, and after having been in the UK for 12 years, he still could not be listed for the liver transplant operation or receive any social assistance. In addition to his physical illness, W is also suffering from depression. Since early 2008 W has not been able to work and has had to live by borrowing from friends. W’s main wish is to receive appropriate treatment and recover from his illness.

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Caroline's story

Caroline was a political activist in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) campaigning against the human rights abuses of the Mobutu regime. She was the president of the women’s opposition inside the Mouvement National Congolais .

In 1994 Mobuto sent forces to Caroline’s home to arrest her. When Caroline’s husband, Jean, sought to defend her, the soldiers killed him in front of her and took her to prison. Caroline spent two and a half years in prison, where she was raped and tortured. She was only released when Laurent Desire Kabila’s coalition of opposition forces the Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo-Zaire forced Mobuto to flee the country in 1997.

After her release from prison fighting broke out between Hutu Rwandans and Congolese ethnic Tutsis. In the chaos, Caroline lost three of her seven children and because her husband was half-Rwandan she had to protect her brother-in-law and his children from reprisals. A year later in an attack on her village, her house was burnt down with two of her grandchildren, aged 10 and 12, inside. They were both burned to death.

Caroline fled to the capital, Kinshasa, with just two grandchildren 2003 where for a time she was sheltered by a friend but she was soon turned out because her friend was too scared of being found out by troops.

Caroline found someone to look after her grandchildren and fled to England with an associate who regularly travelled to the UK on business. She believed her daughter, Helene, was living in London and she had a phone number for her from a family friend. When she got to Gatwick airport in October 2004, she immediately claimed asylum. Later she was re-united with Helene, the only one of her seven children she knows to be alive. Helene, living in Europe for the previous 10 years, was sure her mother was dead.

Sadly this was not the end of Caroline’s troubles. Five years on, she is still waiting for her asylum claim to be processed. She does not know if one day she will be deported. Unable to continue to send money to Kinshasa, her grandchildren were kicked out onto the streets. Through a London charity, she has recently managed to re-locate the young girls, now 12 and 8, and they are now being sheltered in a church. Caroline’s sister was recently killed by soldiers searching for Caroline.

Caroline has been on anti-depressants for the last five years, unable to come to terms with the trauma she has suffered and the violence that has torn her family apart. She has been offered accommodation, but it is two hours from her daughter and four grand children on whom she is so dependent. She is now 63 years old and craves nothing more than a peaceful old age, close to her remaining family. She would like to be able to work to support herself and grandchildren in Kinshasa, without relying on the charity of others.

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