Somalina

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  24. Posted

    By Michael Brennan Political Correspondent

    Tuesday May 04 2010

    ALMOST two-thirds of asylum seekers who claimed to be from war-torn Somalia last year were found to be lying.

     

    The immigration authorities mounted a special operation, which involved inviting the "Somali" nationals to do interviews with a language analyst, and checking their applications against the British authorities' database.

     

    They found that 61pc of the 104 applicants who last year said they were from Somalia had applied for visas in Britain under a different nationality.

     

    According to the annual report of the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC), these asylum seekers turned out to be from a variety of other countries which are far more stable, including Tanzania, Kenya, Yemen, Ethopia and Djibouti.

     

    "A small number of the applicants had previously been granted UK nationality prior to an application in this country," it said.

     

    Somalia has been without an effective central government since its president was overthrown in 1991 and has been ravaged by famine, civil war and piracy.

     

    The ORAC report for 2009 said that a number of asylum seekers arrived last year without any passport to show their identity or any travel documents to show how they travelled to the State. "However, at the same time, some of these applicants indicate they have travelled to the State by air, which would normally have required the presentation of identity documents, including visas at the point of departure," it said.

     

    Interviewers had internet access to cross-check claims made by asylum seekers.

     

    The fingerprints of 2,395 asylum seekers were sent electronically to an EU fingerprint database in Luxembourg (known as EURODAC) and 295 "hits" were confirmed. And immigration officials also sent on suspicious documents provided by asylum seekers to the Garda Technical Bureau for analysis.

     

    Suspicions

     

    "In a number of cases, the bureau confirmed our suspicions regarding the authenticity of documents submitted," the report said.

     

    According to the report, last year saw the lowest number of asylum applications since 1997. The 2,689 applications received were also down 30pc on the previous year.

     

    During the year, the cases of 3,908 asylum seekers were dealt with -- and just 78 of them (2.5pc) were granted asylum.

     

    Almost 66pc of these finalised applications were refused; another 20pc of applications were deemed to be withdrawn; and 10pc of the applications were rejected on the grounds that the asylum seeker had made a previous application in another EU state first.

     

    - Michael Brennan Political Correspondent

     

    Irish Independent