Asylum support organisation urges people to help the rejected refugees like the Jews were during Second World War

Iraqis whose asylum applications have been rejected are going underground to avoid being sent back, after a group of 22 rejected Iraqi asylum seekers were forcibly repatriated from Denmark yesterday.

Asylum support organisation Asylret is urging people in Denmark to do what they can to help.

Asylret spokesperson Said Parvin said people should do what they could to ‘save lives, just like when Jews were hidden during the Second World War’.

He told Politken newspaper that while Asylret was not hiding anyone, it knew that more of the remaining Iraqis whose requests for asylum had been rejected had gone underground to avoid being sent back to Iraq.

There are now about 90 Iraqis living under the radar in Denmark.

Five of those Iraqis deported yesterday were arrested upon arrival and the rest, according to Shalaw Mohammed, who is one of them, ‘were too terrified to leave the airport’.

Each of the repatriated Iraqis received about $300 to help them reach their home towns but Mohammed said airport personnel had advised them it was too dangerous to go into the city.

‘We’re all really afraid and don’t know what we should do or where we will go,’ he said.

The 23-year-old hails from Kirkuk, but hasn’t contacted family or friends there for fear of repercussions.

‘There is militia here in Iraq that’s out to get me and I’m afraid to tell anyone I’m here. I’m also afraid what could happen to my family if they try to help me,’ he said.

Back in Denmark, thousands of people took to the streets last night to protest the deportations.

In Copenhagen, up to 10,000 people in a 1km-long procession marched from the Immigration Ministry to Brorson’s Church, where many of the Iraqis had sought shelter before being arrested and evicted last month.