Colin Firth makes plea for nurse 'facing murder' in Congo
Monday, 26 February 2007
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The actor Colin Firth has joined forces with five bishops to denounce the Government for deporting about 40 Congo nationals on a chartered flight to Kinshasa today.
Firth told The Independent that he was particularly concerned about the fate of a nurse on the flight from Gatwick, which would also carry 19 children. "Nobody likes an actor with a cause," he said, "least of all me. But there is good reason to believe this guy is at risk. He is certain that if he returns he will be murdered."
The nurse, who fears for his life if his real name or a photograph is published, fled the Democratic Republic of Congo five years ago after the assassination of former president Laurent Desire Kabila. He was working in the Congolese army as a nurse at a military hospital.
After the president's assassination a number of officers were rounded up and locked in military cells at the camp. "The military commandant gave us the order to inject a strong dose of morphine in all the arrested officers," the nurse, who calls himself Pierre, said. "There were three of us. We refused to carry out the order because we did not want to kill innocent officers. From that moment my life has been in danger. The commandant had us arrested, beaten and thrown into prison."
Pierre managed to escape to Kenya after his brother bribed some of the prison guards. From there he made his way to England, where he has spent the past five years, mostly sleeping on the floor of friends' homes and depending on charity after his first claim for asylum was refused.
Firth became aware of his case through his mother, Shirley, who is president of the Southampton and Winchester Visitors' Group, which offers emotional and financial support to asylum-seekers.
He said: "It just makes me so furious. There's going to be 19 kids on this flight, a chartered plane because they don't want kids kicking and screaming on a commercial flight when they bundle them out through the backdoor.
"This man has been exemplary. To me it's just basic civilisation to help people. I find this incredibly painful to see how we dismiss the most desperate people in our society. It's easily done. It plays to the tabloids, to the middle-England xenophobes. It just makes me furious. And all from a government we once had such high hopes for."
A spokesman for the Home Office would not comment on individual cases.
