Donegal group offers friendship to asylum-seekers

In Donegal town they have set up the Asylum-Seekers' Support Group which aims to make life less boring for the 55 latest arrivals. The support group's committee includes doctors, teachers, the local curate, Father Declan McCarron, and Mr Colm McAree of the Donegal Youth Information Centre in the town.

He said the group was "about extending the hand of friendship; we can't just leave them there."

Already the group has met representatives of the asylum-seekers and it is hoped this will lead to them taking part in voluntary activities in the community. That way it is hoped to help them cope with the enforced idleness which they say is driving them crazy.

Hicham Maarduf said he was afraid it would make him "stupid." His Algerian colleague, Jamal Naamaane, said he would do anything, and for nothing. "We need to do something and we didn't come here to make money," said Jamal. Besides, they both "would like to do something for this place" as it has been good to them.

Meanwhile, they get £15 a week and their board and lodging. They are not allowed even work in the hostel where they stay. They watch a lot of TV.

Hicham is 25. He is an electrical technician. Both he and Jamal are from Maghnia in Algeria. Jamal is 30 and an electrical engineer who worked for a major domestic petrol company in the Sahara. They met on the plane to Dublin.

The support group has already begun English classes for the asylum-seekers. Just half are said to speak any English. It is also hoped to involve some as adult youth leaders in sporting and cultural activities. Many of the town's youngsters had been "very impressed" with some of their soccer skills, Mr McAree said.

It was also hoped to begin an awareness programme involving schools whereby the asylum-seekers could make classroom presentations about their home countries.

Mr McAree said this would be useful as a "getting to know you" exercise for everyone.

Mr Shane Timony, who owns the Cliff View hostel where the asylum-seekers are staying, said 16 nationalities were represented at the moment. The majority were African and most were in their 20s.

They have been in Donegal a month and his contract to accommodate them is for a year. He had encountered no hostility locally since taking on the contract, he said.

Hicham Maarduf and Jamal Naamane said the local people were "very friendly." The only hostility they had encountered was from some youths. They accepted this as normal. "They think we are taking their money, their taxes . . . if we were in their place we would be the same," said Hicham.

They paid a third man, recommended to them, $3000 each to get to Dublin. He had sold them on the idea of Ireland. They resisted, thinking they were headed to a war zone. He persuaded them this was a nice country with friendly people. Besides, it was very difficult to get into England.

He arranged false Italian passports to get them out of Algeria. They would not have got out otherwise. When the three arrived at Dublin airport, via Orly airport in Paris, their escort disappeared. He took with him an additional $500 dollars belonging to Hicham, which he was keeping safe. That was on April 16th. Both had to get out of Algeria. Hicham's mother and sister were shot dead at "a false checkpoint" six years ago next Sunday. His father was shot in the back and paralysed from the waist down.

Hicham, who was in school, left to help run his father's small electrical business.

Because he was needed at home he could not do his compulsory military service. Last November, his father and uncle were arrested on suspicion of complicity with the Islamic fundamentalist GIA. His father had nothing whatsoever to do with the GIA, Hicham said. He has had no contact with his father since and does not know where he is held.

Friends told him police were searching for him too, on the same charges. They also wanted to arrest him for not doing his military service. It was similar with Jamal. He had a good job, a car, and a house. He got into trouble when he refused to allow the petrol plant he was responsible for be used by the GIA for making bombs. The GIA then went to his house and murdered his father and mother, he said. And police had been searching for him as they believed he had GIA sympathies.

To date, they have only been eating fish. The hostel is doing all it can to arrange for Hal Al meat to be supplied. Because they are Muslims, it is the only meat they can eat.