Refugee groups appeal for Canadian visa for Rwandan carer
March 25 2010 by Liam Clifford
A care worker who moved to Canada five years ago after claiming refugee status is facing deportation to her native Rwanda.
Charlotte Umutesi, 35, appealed
for sanctuary after she claimed she was attacked and sexually assaulted by a
genocidaire who killed her husband, sister and parents, and later attacked her
brother after Ms. Umutesi testified against him in a tribunal. She says she
fears he will kill her if she returns to Rwanda.
Canadian immigration
authorities have rejected Ms. Umutesi’s application to live in Canada. If Canadian
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney does not intervene, Ms. Umutesi will become
the first person to be deported from Canada to Rwanda since its 1994 genocide.
In 2007, Immigration and Refugee Board judge William Davis ruled that
Ms. Umutesi did not qualify for refugee status, citing “serious inconsistencies,
contradictions and omission” in her story, such as having obtained both a
medical report and travel visa from a man with the same name. The judge said
that Ms. Umutesi also failed to produce documents proving the death of her
family and her own injuries.
Janet Dench, executive director of the
Canadian Council for Refugees, said: “[Ms. Umutesi] has the same profile as
people who are accepted [for residency], and yet she's refused.
“The
result of the whole thing is you get people like Charlotte who draw the short
straw, and now the government is spending lots of money to remove her to the
benefit of nobody whatsoever.”
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