Fed: Kadem family returned to Iraq

AAP General News (Australia)
12-21-2003
Fed: Kadem family returned to Iraq

An Iraqi family of eight asylum seekers were flown out of Australia last night after
having spent more than four years trying to claim refugee status.

The Immigration Department says it will only confirm that the family has left Australia.

Spokeswoman Kate Thomas says they requested voluntary return to Iraq and have left.

ABDUL KADEM, aged 42, his 36-year-old wife and six children arrived by boat from Indonesia
in 1999.

Their seventh child was born in Curtin Detention Centre, at Derby in north-west WA
which has since been closed.

The family signed voluntary return papers at the end of October after immigration officials
refused to move them from Port Hedland detention centre to Sydney or Melbourne, where
they could apply for visas.

In October members of the family went on a hunger strike, threatened to sew their lips
together and staged a roof-top protest at the Port Hedland detention centre to draw attention
to their treatment.

AAP RTV ag/rt

KEYWORD: KADEM DEPARTURE (MELBOURNE)

2003 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.