Frustration grows for Spaniard and Nigerian awaiting deportation

Sep 23, 2014 News

They have been in the Diamond/Grove Police Station lock-ups for the past two months and the frustration level of two foreign nationals who are awaiting deportation is increasing with every passing day.
A Spanish national known as Vincente, 31, and a Nigerian, Wilfred, vented their frustration yesterday, by disobeying orders from ranks manning the station.
The foreigners who have completed lengthy prison sentences for drug trafficking and illegally entering Guyana, allegedly made life a bit difficult for the ranks by refusing to go back into their cells after completing their daily bathing routine.
It took several minutes of pleading by a subordinate officer to calm things down.
Divisional Commander Clifton Hicken downplayed the incident explaining that the men later apologized for their actions.
The two foreigners are being kept in custody as local authorities try to contact their relatives or their respective diplomatic missions to pay their airfares back to their homelands.
The Nigerian however, has familial connections to Guyana; he has a nine-year-old daughter and a three- year-old son by a Guyanese woman.
The woman, who gave her name as Anntonette, told this newspaper that her daughter keeps asking about her father almost every day.
According to Anntonette, although she and Wilfred are not together at present, she has been making efforts to have him remain in Guyana legally for the sake of his children.
She told this newspaper that when his time in Guyana expired, he desperately tried to obtain an extension of stay in order to be with his children; however this was never granted.
They even contemplated marriage but because at the time he was illegal in the country, they experienced problems in this regard.
It was after his efforts failed that he made the move to illegally obtain a Guyana passport. Of course this landed him into the hands of the law, resulting in him serving three years imprisonment for forgery.
“I do everything I had to do fuh he get to stay (in Guyana) but it did not work out. Is either they let he stay or let he go, they can’t leh he do a next (jail) time,” Anntonette told this newspaper.
She said that she even went to the Guyana Human Rights Association, but was told that there was nothing the body could do.
A month ago when this newspaper first highlighted the foreigners’ plight, Police Commissioner (ag) Seelall Persaud had confirmed that the men are awaiting deportation.
He explained that the Guyana Police Force does not have the financial resources to fund the men’s passage back to their country of origin.
As a result, the Force is in the process of contacting the respective diplomatic missions as well as relatives of the detained men.
“Arrangements are being made to source their passage but if things are not working out, we will inform the government,” the Top Cop had explained.
There are reports that the men have expressed their desire to stay in Guyana, since they claimed to have fled from dire circumstances in their homeland.
“They don’t want to go back home,” a source who spent time in the lock-ups with the two foreigners told this newspaper.
This newspaper understands that the Nigerian left his country to escape poverty.
The highlighting of their plight led to local private security magnate, Roshan Khan, offering assistance to the Nigerian.
In an email to a reporter from this newspaper, Khan said that he is willing to pursue the matter of having the Nigerian remain in Guyana.
“I am going to petition the relevant authorities to allow me to sponsor this gentleman, help him to secure work permits… I will personally guarantee him employment and housing….My Company, my family and I are always on the lookout for situations like these. We strongly feel if we could extend a helping hand, like the drop in the Ocean that sends out ripples to its far shores, others will take example and we could move closer to harmony in the world. With all the atrocities being committed right now in places like the Middle East, we need examples of humanitarian effort so we don’t lose faith in mankind and the world,” Khan wrote.

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Frustration grows for Spaniard and Nigerian awaiting deportation

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