Bishop urges Home Office to show compassion
Bishop Harold today added his support for Comfort Adefowoju and her family who are currently facing deportation. In issuing the following statement Bishop Harold is calling on the Home Office to allow Comfort and her four children to remain in Northern Ireland.
"I would like to add my voice to the many which are pleading with the Home Office today on behalf of Mrs Comfort Adefowoju and her young children. Comfort is seeking, as best she can, to bring up her children, including baby Sarah who was born in Belfast, with the fear hanging over her of being deported to Nigeria.
She has been abandoned by her husband, and has found here a community in East Belfast into which she has fully integrated. Not only would her deportation be a loss to us in Northern Ireland, who benefit greatly from people of other cultures who integrate well, but it would also be very traumatic for her young children.
My understanding is that the only grounds on which Comfort can apply to stay is that of ‘compassion' - a quality for which we have been known in the past in these islands, and not least in Northern Ireland.
Compassion is not something weak - it is an intentional standing in the shoes of the other person and feeling what they are suffering. I plead as a Christian leader with the Home Office to bring compassion to bear in this particular situation, and to enable Comfort and her family to settle in what is now home for them."