General News of Monday, 28 January 2008

Source: by Brian Oliver in Accra and Caroline Davies, The Observer

Forced from the UK, dying in pain

- still she thanks Britain's people

2008-01-28 --In her first interview since being removed to Ghana after her visa ran out, cancer patient Ama Sumani tells of her gratitude to those who have helped her - but asks why she has to suffer in a strange city

Her legs and face are swollen, and with each slight movement she winces in pain. Lying on a hospital bed in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, there are moments when Ama Sumani appears incoherent. Then it all becomes too overwhelming and tears roll down her cheeks. 'I wish I was still in Cardiff,' she says quietly. 'Why could they not have kept me there? Why could they not have treated me and then sent me back?'

It's more than two weeks since Ama, a 39-year-old widowed mother of two, was taken in a wheelchair from a Cardiff hospital by three immigration officials, flown to Accra, then dumped in a city she had visited just once before in her life. MORE