Choirs join city protest to halt woman's deportation

Choirs from across the city joined other campaigners to support the case of Lem Lem Hussein Abdu, who is due to be put on a flight to Addis Ababa this afternoon. Supporters said the 60-year-old is Eritrean by birth but fled the country in fear more than three decades ago when her family were killed and her home village was burned to the ground.

Apparently the family were supporters of the Eritrean Liberation Front which was fighting for independence from Ethiopia, the country to which she is set to be returned by the British Government. She first escaped to Sudan then to Saudi Arabia where she was employed by a family as a domestic worker.

She ended up in Britain after being abandoned by the family while on a visit here.

Ralph Hancock who is battling to stop the deportation, said: "We are concerned about her fitness to travel at all, let alone to a country where she has no friends and which her family fought to be free from. Her time in Sheffield, despite the hardship and worry, has been the only peaceful period in all her 60 years.

"I fear she would be in terrible danger if sent back to Ethiopia or Eritrea.

"She had won the respect and affection of all who know her and I believe strongly she would be an asset to Britain and to her many friends if allowed to remain. We are horrified that she might be deported."

Home Office officials have already refused a claim for asylum from the elderly woman and she has been held in Yarlswood Immigration Removal Centre in the West Midlands.

Her supporters also yesterday called on Sheffield Hallam MP and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg to intervene and stop the deportation going ahead.