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Girl, 16, faces deportation to Sudan where ‘she lived in fear’

Ann Bashir, 16, and her family have had a claim of asylum rejected.

Ann Bashir, 16, and her father. (SWNS)
Ann Bashir, 16, and her father. (SWNS)

A Sudanese refugee who faces deportation during her GCSE studies has said her family “lived in fear” of being killed and raped before fleeing to the UK.

Ann Bashir, 16, and her family have had a claim of asylum rejected after fleeing Sudan two years ago due to fears they would face persecution.

Her mother, Giehan Yassi, and sister Enji Bashir - then just 16 - were detained for attending anti-government rallies.

A campaign has been launched at Ann's school in Hove, East Sussex, to help keep them all in the UK.

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The exterior of the new headquarters of the Home Office at 2 Marsham Street, SW1, London. Home Office staff started moving in to the building, designed by Sir Terry Farrell, at the beginning of February 2005. (Photo by Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty Images)
Ann Bashir and her family have had a claim of asylum rejected. (Getty)

Ann, who attends Cardinal Newman Catholic School, said she and her family had no regrets over their opposition to government oppression in Sudan.

But she added they looked back on their final days in the country before fleeing as "a nightmare".

Ann's pharmacist father - whose name is not being revealed by the family - has not been heard from since the family left and is presumed imprisoned or dead after his involvement in anti-government protests.

Their asylum application was rejected under her mother’s claim on the basis their fear of persecution was not "a well-founded fear", the Argus reported.

Ann explained that her family's living situation in Sudan had become untenable since 2018, so they fled to the UK and claimed asylum.

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Georgia Neale, associate assistant headteacher at Cardinal Newman Catholic School, read out a letter on behalf of Ann at a school vigil held earlier this week.

Ann thanked her fellow students and teachers for standing with her family in their attempt to resist deportation.

She wrote: "Since 2018 we have been unable to live safely in Sudan. We lived in fear of terrorism during this time.

"We feared being killed, raped, threatened with detention… and other things words can’t describe.

"But we never regretted that we stood up for freedom and justice for ourselves and our country.

"Whenever we remember what happened to us in Sudan, we describe it as a 'nightmare that can never be forgotten'.

"I would like to thank the house captains for their support in helping me fight my family's threat of deportation.”