Local sources have reported that a French prefect asked a Chechen family to leave France because of the negative decision on their asylum demand.

Recall that earlier we reported that a Chechen family, including three children, ages 7, 5 and 4 years old, arrived illegally in France in 2009 and they have lived in the city of Segré since 2010. But their asylum application was rejected and a local group in the city started to organize support meetings for the family since the middle of December 2012. Even still, the French Socialist Party’s (PS) regional councillor Jean-Noël Gaultier wrote a letter to the French Interior Minister Manuel Vals and asked a revisement to thes family’s asylum demand while he mentioned that the family has forced to leave the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria because of their suffering from violence and torture.

However, on January 29, the Prefect of Maine-et-Loire asked the family to leave French territory immediately. According to the prefect, “the family used up all possible administrative remedies to obtain refuge status. Moreover, they don’t fit the Interior Ministry’s circular on November 28, 2012 which determines exceptional permission to stay: at least 5 years of residence in French territory and a basic French language knowledge. Thus they have to leave France now”.

*Text was written by Waynakh Online and edited by Michael Capobianco