RIGHTS: Hundreds Protest The Murder Of A Nigerian Girl in Belgium

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Oct 9 1998 (IPS) - Hundreds of Nigerians Friday demonstrated in front of the Belgian embassy in Lagos, protesting the death of a Nigerian asylum seeker in Brussels last month.

The group, led by the Nigerian Human Rights Coalition, presented a petition to the Belgian Ambassador, condemning the action of the Belgian police that led to the death of the 20-year- old Semira Adamu.

Her body arrived at the Mohamed Mortala International Airport in Lagos on Thursday night.

Semira’s story began six months ago when she fled to Belgium and applied for asylum following attempts to force her to marry a 65-year-old polygamous man in Northern Nigeria.

The practice is common in the North for teenagers and underage girls between 11 and 15 to be given out ‘forcefully’ to pre- arranged marriages usually to overage men.

Her application for refugee status in Belgium was refused but was arrested at the airport and taken to a refugee camp, 15 kilometres from Brussels.

On deportation attempt, Semira was allegedly injected with a drug called ‘Kamuermidded’ to put her to sleep while being driven by six police escorts to the airport. Semira was later put on board Sabena Airlines but started screaming.

In an attempt to “calm” her, the Belgium police held a cushion against her face and she fell into coma before she died in a Brussels hospital of brain haemorrhage.

“It is with great horror and misgiving that we learnt of the death of Ms Semira Adamu, a Nigerian, following her ill-treatment at the hands of the Belgium gendarmes entrusted with the task of deporting her on Tuesday, 22 September 1998,” the coalition said in the letter signed by Olawale Fapohunda of the Civil Liberty Organisation (CLO).

“The Nigerian Human Rights NGO Coalition on Semira Adamu views the circumstance leading to the death… as tragic, shocking and as falling far below civilised standards for the treatment of any person”, said the group.

“For us it is most disheartening that such cruel and inhuman act could be perpetuated by officials of a country often referred to as the capital of Europe, we vigorously and vehemently protest the death as murder and we call for the immediate prosecution of those responsible for her death and full and adequate compensation for her family,” it added.

This is not the first time a Nigerian asylum seeker has died during a deportation process.

In 1995, Kola Bankole, died through a combination of sedative injection and gagging, during a deportation process by German Immigration officials.

Semira’s death, which sparked wide protest in Brussels and caused the suspension of deportation of other asylum seekers, was roundly condemned in Nigeria by human rights groups.

The Nigerian government was not spared either. “The government must put in place proper policies to keep Nigerians at home by providing employment for the teeming unemployed graduates seeking asylum abroad to better their lives,” Fapohunda told IPS.

Sina Loremikan of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) agreed. “The unfortunate problem of Nigerians and Africans in general seeking asylum abroad because of economic or political situation in their country will continue as long as there is a growing poverty in developing countries,” he told IPS.

“Whether the asylum seekers went abroad for economic or political reasons, if a killing can result from repatriating them, it is an abuse. If the police can treat refugees like animals it is condemnable,” he said.

In a letter of protest to the Belgian Ambassador in Nigeria on Oct 2, signed by Onyekachi Christie of the CLO, Grace Hygie – Enwerem of Women Justice Programme and Uju Agbanu – Obiora on behalf of the coalition, the group protested in strong terms, what it described as “the gruesome murder by suffocation of Miss Semira”.

It demanded that full investigations be carried out on the matter to ensure justice.

The women’s coalition also called for compensation to the family of Semira and an end to forced deportation and the “cushion technique” which led to her death.

The group urged the Belgian authorities to immediately grant refugee status to asylum seekers in the detention centre where Semira was held.

It noted that a letter to the interior minister, Louis Tobbak by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICTFU) in August this year on the case, had condemned the Belgium authorities for refusing Semira refugee status.

“This is a violation of Belgium obligation under the UN convention on elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.” The group said the technique used on the deceased also constituted a violation of the UN Declaration on violence against women adopted by the General Assembly in December 1993.