OSLO, Norway, March 27, 2010 — Fathiya Ahmed Omar and her six year old son, Munir, were forcefully deported from Bergen, Norway, and sent back to the city of Genoa in Italy where she was found to have been a fingered printed and processed as an asylum seeker before entering Norway.

Ms. Omar left Mogadishu, Somalia, carrying her son Munir and walking all the way to Kenya. From Kenya she went to Sudan, and eventually ended up in Libya. On her way to Libya she was held captive by the Libyan human smugglers who raped her for twenty days.

After this tribulation, Fathiya and her child arrived in Italy where she was processed in the city of Genoa as an asylum seeker. Fathiya decided to head to Norway where she had some family members and went to the city of Bergen.

Last week Immigration officers came to Fathiya’s apartment and was given one hour to gather all her belongings and told that she will be deported to Italy because of the Dublin Cooperation regulation (343/2003/EC).

This agreement established a series of criteria in which any member state that permits an applicant to enter or to reside in the territories of the member States of the European Union is obligated to take back its applicants who are irregularly found in another Member State.

At the time of her deportation Fathiya Omar was going intensive medical surgery at the Bergen hospital for the rape that she sustained from the Libyan human smugglers. Doctor Ulf Horlyk who was treating Fathiya before her deportation confirmed that Fathiya not only needed the physical surgery but also that she needs physiological treatment for the torment that she went through.

Fathiya and her son Munir are now in the city of Genoa, Italy, where they are homeless and without the medical treatment that Fathiya requires. She may not make it without assistance from international rights groups and medical teams.

On 18 February 2003, the EU Council of Ministers adopted a regulation (343/2003/EC) establishing a series of criteria which, in general, allocate responsibility for examining an asylum application to the Member State that permitted the applicant to enter or to reside in the territories of the Member States of the European Union. That Member State is responsible for examining the application according to its national law and is obliged to take back its applicants who are irregularly in another Member State.

Source: SomalilandPress, March 21, 2010

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