A Zimbabwean student at Dublin City University (DCU) in Ireland, Shepherd Machaya, is facing deportation this Sunday. Shepard left Zimbabwe due to political unrest in his country. He says he is from an area near Gweru, and that ZANU-PF supporters would kill him if he is deported back to Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwean student at Dublin City University (DCU) in Ireland, Shepherd Machaya
“This is the only other place that I know,” Shepard said in an extremely emotional video.
Shepard Machaya is a second year Management of Information Technology and Information Systems at the north Dublin university.
Mr Machaya fled his home country of Zimbabwe nine years ago and has been living in Direct Provision ever since.
His application for asylum was recently rejected and he was served a deportation order for Sunday, October 21.
Advertisement
The students have launched a petition urging Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan to reconsider the decision.
On Friday afternoon, a number of DCU students demonstrated outside the Department of Justice & Equality calling upon Minister Charles Flanagan to revoke Shepherd’s deportation order.
He explained his situation in a video posted on Dublin City University’s Student Union’s Facebook page.
DCUSU president Vito Moloney Burke read the open letter penned by the DCU sabbatical team to the minister to a crowd of over 100 supporters of the campaign lined on the steps of the department building.
“Shepherd Machaya’s deportation order is completely inconceivable to us.
“Not just because he is a model citizen, who has contributed so much to our communities through the sheer commitment to his studies and bettering himself to contribute to society, but also because of the undeniable danger he will be placed under should he return to Zimbabwe.
“We urge Minister Flanagan to prevent him from being forcibly returned to a place where he was tortured and his best friend was murdered.”
DCU are claiming that his status as refuge should still be valid as his life is in danger should he be forced to return.
