Somali man allowed to stay - for now

By CATHERINE MASTERS

Abdikarin Ali Haji has a smile plastered on his face.

In a dramatic week when a Sri Lankan girl was sent away to an uncertain fate, the young Somali man received much better news.

Mr Haji has been allowed to stay, at least for now. This week he was released from jail.

But he knows how close he came to being sent back to almost certain death. Mr Haji, 27, arrived as an asylum seeker six years ago and spent more than five of them living here peacefully.

The prospect of returning to his war-ravaged country was terrifying.

Mr Haji's distraught image was captured on television in November; he screamed in anguish flanked by policemen at Auckland International Airport.

He was granted a High Court temporary reprieve just hours before his plane was due to leave and was sent back to prison. At the Auckland Central Remand Prison he thought suicide might be a better option than going back home.

But he says another prisoner, Ahmed Zaoui, the Algerian politician jailed for more than 14 months, kept him going.

Zaoui would entice the subdued Somalian out of his cell to play poker, and would talk and give advice.

"Ahmed Zaoui, he was awesome. He was really very nice. I couldn't survive if I wouldn't meet him. I don't think even I would of been alive now, I would have killed myself.

"Always he used to talk to me, be optimistic, don't be worried. He helped me a lot."

This week Mr Haji was granted a year-long permit to stay until the situation back home stabilises.

For now he is free, but Somalia's own screams of devastation go on.

United Nations advice to countries with asylum seekers such as Mr Haji is: Do not send them back to this hell hole.

There is no stable government and the country is terrorised by clan fighting and run by warlords.

Mr Haji grew up in Mogadishu, the capital, in his family's brick and stone house - located right at the site of the disastrous American invasion in the early 1990s, depicted in the film Black Hawk Down.

Mr Haji's father was a nurse at the local hospital and his mother raised eight boys and two girls.

Clans fight constantly in Mogadishu to capture the capital. The winner claims presidency until toppled by the next challenger.

Mr Haji says he saw shooting and death. His family's house was continually being attacked by a rival tribe. They would launch rocket grenades at it.

One day when he was playing soccer heavy artillery broke out. He jumped in a truck packed with terrified people and fled for his life.

He made it first to India, where he learned to speak Hindi. But India does not take refugees, so he continued until he got to New Zealand.

He has moved around small towns and picked up jobs in freezing works and fisheries, staying off the benefit and paying his way.

Those who know him say he is a character - an intelligent, charming young man who likes to laugh despite what he has been through.

He is enterprising and finds jobs easily. One of his favourites was as an extra on Xena: Warrior Princess where he played African drums and danced as Xena fought evil.

But his peace was shattered nearly eight months ago when he was called to the office at the fish factory where he worked near Gisborne, only to be handcuffed and led away by Immigration Service staff.

His lawyers pleaded with the Associate Immigration Minister, Damien O'Connor, on humanitarian grounds - but the suddenness of the minister's decision to deport Mr Haji took them by surprise.

His lawyers scrambled and headed to the High Court, obtaining an order which gave him a temporary reprieve and the shaken Somalian found himself back in jail.

Claudia Farry represents Mr Haji. The Auckland lawyer says her client might well be dead by now if he had been made to step off a plane at Mogadishu.

She is concerned at the series of events which led to her client almost being deported.

The Immigration Service had obtained travel documents purportedly issued from a Somalian Government office in Kenya.

But this was "madness", says Ms Farry. There is no functioning Somali Government and there are no functioning Somali Government offices anywhere.

"Nobody ever confirmed whether they were or weren't [fraudulent documents] but we have to conclude there was something dodgy about them because there's no office that could possibly have issued a legitimate travel document for Somalia under the current circumstances."

The service had arranged to fly Mr Haji to Johannesburg via Hong Kong and had then arranged for a private charter to pick him up in South Africa and fly him to Mogadishu.

Mr Haji says Mogadishu airport has been bombed so much it no longer functions and Ms Farry says flights there are rare.

"Most of them are drug-trafficking sorts of arrangements so it was all incredibly dodgy.

"Waiting at the airport are these gangs of militia who aren't answerable to anybody and who target individuals who are returning, particularly if they believe those people have come from the West."

Haven for some

Who: Abdikarin Ali Haji, from Somalia.

Circumstances: Anarchy has ruled in Somalia since 1991, with clan versus sub-clan. The country is also plagued by drought and famine.

Threat: Haji is a target because he comes from a small clan, vulnerable to constant attack by large clans ruled by brutal warlords.

Status: Has been issued with an identity card after being granted a one-year permit allowing him to stay until the situation in Somalia stabilises.

Who: Ahmed Zaoui, Algerian politician.

Circumstances: Fled Algeria after his legitimately elected party was overthrown in a military coup.

Threat: The military government issued a death threat against him in absentia and has since handed down a series of life sentences. He fears torture and death if returned to Algeria.

Status: Held initially as a suspected terrorist, Zaoui has been cleared and granted refugee status. But he remains in prison, where he has been since December 2002, until the outcome of a review of a security risk certificate against him, issued on the basis of secret SIS information.

Who: Girl X, aged 16, from Sri Lanka.

Circumstances: Sought haven with her grandmother in 2002 after being raped and abused by two uncles since aged 7.

Threat: Fears further abuse or death from relatives angry at her revelations. NZ Government confident of ability of a church agency to look after her, but aid organisations allege breakdown in social services.

Status: Expelled from NZ on Thursday, expected to arrive in Sri Lanka today. Entered New Zealand without documentation claiming refugee status, but lost two appeals and a High Court challenge.