350 sign petition for deportation rethink

Mildred Okpara fled Nigeria five years ago following her partner

Ejike's abduction and murder by a Biafran separatist group, the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).

She claims Ejike, a shopkeeper, was killed because he had refused to join the rebels and that members of the group arrived at her house, where she was threatened at gunpoint and her son Enoch, who was then a baby, was shaken violently.

Following her asylum appeal being rejected, she has now been told that she must report to Heathrow Airport on Thursday, September 2 to be forcibly removed from the country.

The 25-year-old, who also has two daughters, Adaku, seven, and Urenna, one, who was born in Britain, said: "If we're forced back I'm terrified we'll be targeted by the same group who killed my partner.

"They threatened us before and my son is still suffering from his injuries. I don't have any family to go back to in Nigeria, so who knows what will happen to us?"

Enoch, now five, still suffers breathing difficulties and needs treatment at Sheffield Children's Hospital.

The Okpara family have lived in Sheffield for the past five years and Ms Okpara has been active in the Burngreave community where she has worked as a volunteer with organisations including the Citizens Advice Bureau, Home-Start Sheffield and the Northern Refugee Centre.

Friends of the family are now campaigning to keep the Okparas in Sheffield and are set to present their petition to the Home Secretary, Theresa May.