The racism continues- more charted planes, 61 more deportations

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Wednesday March 31, 2004 11:50

by fin

61 people were deported out of ireland at 2a.m. this morning on a chartered plane

this appeared on the Irish times web site this morning

Sixty-one failed asylum seekers have been deported from Dublin in the second such deportation in a number of weeks. The Romanian and Moldovan failed asylum-seekers were deported from the State in the early hours of this morning on a chartered aircraft.

The operation came after a week-long series of raids by gardaí in counties Cork, Galway, Wexford, Tipperary and Dublin and followed co-operation between the Irish, Romanian and Moldovan authorities.

It brings to 300 the number of failed asylum-seekers deported in the first three months of the year, double the figure for the same period last year. A further 1,000 deportation orders are outstanding.

All have had their asylum applications rejected and had exhausted the appeals process.

The group included around 55 Romanians - 40 men, 10 women and a small number of children. Around 10 Moldovans were also included in the group.

Last night's flight took off shortly after 2 a.m. from Dublin Airport and was scheduled to visit the Romanian capital, Bucharest, and Chisinau, the capital of Moldova. The deportees were due to be accompanied on the flight by a number of gardaí who were due back in Ireland today.

It is understood an Irish advance party was already at the two destinations yesterday and had worked with the authorities in Romania and Moldova to put in place the necessary paperwork to repatriate all of those on board last night's flight.