When people die waiting in Ireland’s asylum system, their bodies may lie in limbo

When people seeking asylum in Ireland die, their bodies can lie in limbo as officials search for their next of kin, documents released under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act suggest.

An internal message dated 14 January, from an International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) official, says that it doesn’t have any information on the identity of a “next of kin” for a deceased person who lived in an asylum centre on file.

“I have been informed that no burial can take place until the post mortem is complete and necessary identification is complete,” it says.

Says another from May: “We do not hold details of [...] Next of Kin.”

The Department of Justice asks applicants to list their family members “such as parents, siblings and dependents” on the asylum application form, says a department spokesperson.

A sample asylum form shows that it inquires about spouses, partners or civil partners, dependents and up to three relatives who live in Ireland, and seeks information about the latter’s immigration statuses.

But Wendy Lyon, partner and immigration solicitor at Abbey Law, points out how it doesn’t ask for their contact details or addresses. 

Besides a gap in asylum bureaucracy that can overlook capturing information like relatives’ contact details, requests for whom to contact and what to do can also get ignored.

In January, the body of Nilay Ateşoğlu, a Kurdish woman seeking asylum from Turkey, was handed over to her family through the Turkish embassy and sent to be buried in her country of birth, despite the fact that she’d left behind a farewell note in which she asked to be buried in Ireland.

Ateşoğlu’s friends in Turkey and roommates in an asylum centre in Co. Galway said in February that her relationship with family was fraught and tumultuous.

Her body was found lying under the Cliffs of Moher in Co. Clare on 9 November, on her 29th birthday. Then it lay in limbo for nearly two months until it was buried in late January. 

Her farewell note was written in Turkish. An Garda Síochána didn’t seem to have translated it. 

In recent months, community activists Ken McCue of Sports Against Racism Ireland (SARI) and Lucky Khambule of the Movement of Asylum Seekers Ireland (MASI), have met with Garda officials to discuss Ateşoğlu’s case. 

They are hoping to spur change so that the asylum process will make an effort to capture people’s emergency contact information, and ensure that it’s for someone they’re comfortable with, even if that person is not a family member or a partner, said McCue.

“Our focus was on general procedures across the service that came to light in the bungling in Nilay's case,” he said.

Says Lyon, the solicitor: “Lots of people, especially women, might be fleeing their next of kin.” “Next of kin” isn’t a legal term, anyway, she said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said it would like to send condolences to the family and friends of Ateşoğlu.

Its current asylum form, which asks for some relatives’ names has been “developed and reviewed with input from all relevant stakeholders, including the UNHCR [Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees], and is in line with international best practice,” they said.

Lost in bureaucracy 

Khambule of MASI says they met with the Garda officials recently, but limbo for the bodies of people who die in the asylum system is nothing new. 

“It’s always been an issue for the [International Protection Office] IPO or IPAS to get hold of the next of kin,” Khambule said.

That’s partly because the asylum questionnaire – which people seeking sanctuary have to fill out on the day when they first open a case at the IPO – doesn’t ask for emergency contacts or next of kin information properly, said Khambule.

People are asked about phone numbers and details when they get hospitalised, Khambule said, but the asylum process overlooks them. That should change, he said.

Also, if someone decides to change an emergency contact, they should be able to update it now that the Department of Justice has an online portal, Khambule said.

“That functionality must be there as well. I’m not sure if it is at the moment,” he said.

Where I want to be

McCue of SARI said he and Khambule met with Chief Superintendent Jane Humphries and her staff and discussed bereavement protocol.

They talked about the bureaucracy of what happens when people seeking asylum die by suicide – like Ateşoğlu – to ensure that their last wish is granted, too.

“The Garda informed us that they are governed by GDPR, so draw a cone of silence across a death by suicide and deal exclusively with next of kin [close family members],” said McCue in an email, recently.

But he says when a guard floated the idea of asking people to nominate a contact of their choice, he thought that was great and hopes that it happens. 

Asked about the idea of capturing emergency contact details as a way to prevent limbo for people who die in the asylum system, a spokesperson for An Garda Síochána said it can’t comment on other government agencies’ processes and data-gathering practices. 

McCue said they’re planning to organise a little tribute for Ateşoğlu, whose last wish wasn’t granted. 

It’s going to be in Galway, he said, and they had asked Gardaí to provide the transport for players from SARI’s Hijabs and Hat Tricks programme.

Gardaí said yes to that, said McCue. 

Ateşoğlu was a bubbly, talented soccer coach, involved with SARI, and she’s so missed, said McCue, recently, during a lunch break of a community meeting.

Videos recorded in her asylum centre show a funny, slim woman dancing and goofing off with other residents. 

An autoimmune illness hung over her life, Ateşoğlu’s friends said in Feburary.

Still, she volunteered and coached kids' soccer in Galway and Dublin. She had asked for a transfer from IPAS as she planned to attend university in Dublin city, but was refused.

She had been so profoundly brave, her friends said, in facing the tumult of life in the asylum system and trying hard to dispel her sadness.

They watched her slowly unravel, getting mad over small stuff in the weeks before her death, said Ayanna Williams, who lived in the same asylum centre in Galway.

Her letter had asked for a final sleep in a “handful of soil” in Ireland.

“I don’t have a home, I don’t have a country. Some borders were drawn over pieces of earth,” she wrote in Turkish.

Not exactly what she’d wanted, but she might get to lay claim to “a handful of soil” here, after all.

McCue says he plans to borrow a tree from the Botanic Gardens to plant in her name. “Down in Galway,” he said.