Asylum seekers to be deported

Between 40 and 50 failed asylum seekers were due to be deported on a specially charted aircraft to Nigeria in the early hours of this morning.

Chief Supt Derek Byrne of the Garda National Immigration Bureau confirmed last night that a deportation charter would be flying to Lagos at about half past midnight from Dublin airport.

"We won't know exactly how many will be going until they are sitting on the plane. We are still working with barristers," he said. He said those being deported had been brought to Dublin from throughout the State.

Among those expected to be on the flight was Mary Ucheh, who has been in the Kiltimagh area of Co Mayo for the past two years, where she has been attending the Mayo Rape Crisis Centre after she was raped in Nigeria.

She claimed she had been raped by four men during riots between Muslims and Christians in 2001. "She is severely, severely traumatised," said a spokeswoman for the centre.

She attended the Garda National Immigration Bureau office in Dublin with her one-year-old child yesterday to sign on, but left her four-year-old in Co Mayo as he was sick. Rosanna Flynn of Residents Against Racism said she had not expected to be deported.

Another expected to be on the flight was Freedom Madunwe, (19), an aged-out-minor, who had been based in Mosney with his parents and three siblings. He arrived in the State when he was 15.