Returned Darfuri asylum-seekers face torture and death in Khartoum

"Of course I am frightened by what can happen to me," said Mr Fasher. "I remember what happened to my family. I was a member of what they call a 'rebel' group. I am afraid they will make me disappear, I will be killed."

The British Government publicly protests about the human rights abuse in Darfur by the Sudanese government and their client Janjaweed militia, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Gutteres, recently said: "Hundreds are still dying amid ongoing violence, and thousands are still being forcibly displaced. If things don't improve, we are heading for a major catastrophe".

But dozens of refugees from the region are having their asylum applications rejected by the Home Office, and face being returned.

Mr Fasher will be one of the first to be sent back. The Home Office, according to him and his supporters, maintains there is not enough evidence to prove that he is from Darfur. In any case, they add, it is now safe for people to be returned to Sudan because of a peace deal between the Khartoum government and some rebel groups.

In fact, Mr Fasher is a grandson of the Sultan of Zaghawa, a prominent Darfur tribe once allied with the British, and the family has connections to the town of el-Fasher in north Darfur. Three years ago, Jack Straw, then Foreign Secretary, visited a refugee camp nearbyon a fact-finding mission on the Darfur conflict.

Mr Fasher was a member of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in Darfur which, unlike another group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), has refused to sign the peace deal, and continues to clash with government forces and the Janjaweed.

Home Office figures show that there are 136 Darfuris in Britain whose asylum applications have been rejected and who await deportation to Khartoum. A further 152 have had their initial applications turned down and are in the process of appealing against removal.

According to the Darfur Union, the umbrella body for exiled Darfuris, and the Aegis Trust, the human rights pressure group, the Home office insists on providing people from the region with interpreters who speak Arabic rather than Darfuri languages like Zaghawa. Many of the asylum seekers complain that they cannot convey their case properly in Arabic, which is perceived in large parts of Darfur as the language of the "oppressive" Arab Khartoum regime. Some say that Arabic interpreters acting for them have sometimes been hostile, accusing them of betraying Islam and Arab fellowship by being "stooges of foreigners".

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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2169233.ece