Unwanted, Unnoticed: an audit of 160 asylum and immigration-related deaths in Europe • Vadim Z. (23), 20/01/2010 A Latvian man, Vadim Z. committed suicide on a railway line near Hamburg. He had come to Germany with his parents in 1992, but was deported in 2005 for burglary. He returned to Germany illegally but remained in fear of being deported again and could not bear it.32 • Unidentified asylum seeker (34), 13/02/2010 An asylum seeker who has not been identified was hit by a train as he walked along the track towards Karlsruhe. He had claimed asylum in Stuttgart days earlier and was told to go to the reception centre at Karlsruhe, but was given no help to travel there.33 • David Mardiani, 07/03/2010 A Georgian asylum seeker, Mardiani committed suicide at the Hahnöfersand juvenile detention centre, awaiting return to Poland under the Dublin Regulation. The immigration authorities had disputed Mardiani’s claim to be a minor. The Hamburg Refugee Support Organisation called for an independent inquiry into his suicide, saying that institutional neglect and substandard medical care in the detention centre hospital, as well as systematic denial of asylum seekers’ legal rights in the centre, contributed to Mardiani’s suicide.34 • Yeni P. (34), 16/04/2010 An Indonesian migrant, Yeni P. committed suicide in a pre-deportation centre in Hamburg. Yeni hanged herself after receiving a deportation order for ‘violation of the Residence Act’. German press attempted to portray her as a gold-digger, married three times to different German men.35 • Slawik C. (58), 02/07/2010 An Azerbaijani migrant, Slawik C. committed suicide in his cell in the Lower Saxony central detention centre in HannoverLangenhagen. Slawik took an overdose of medication prescribed to him by doctors in the detention centre to control his alleged anger. He had lived with his wife and son in Germany for around eleven years before he was arrested and detained. Various groups have accused German Interpol of providing false Armenian identification data and papers in order to deport Slawik to Armenia, despite his having fled Azerbaijan in 1999.36 • Unidentified man, 08/02/2011 An Iranian asylum seeker committed suicide in his prison cell in München-Stadelheim, Bavaria. The man was detained pending return to Bulgaria under the Dublin Regulation.37 • Unidentified boy (10), 24/02/2011 A Serbian child and son of an asylum seeker died after being hit by a train in Braunschweig (Lower Saxony). He and his father had been living in the Boeselagerstraße refugee camp since January, and were on their way back from the town to the camp – a journey which necessitated crossing the railway line – when the boy’s doll pram got caught on in the railway track. As he tried to free it, he was hit by the train. After his death, asylum seekers complained to the police and to Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) about the track. The company refused to install new barriers, stating that it would take until late 2014/ early 2015 because of the ‘extensive planning’ that would be necessary, and refused to get trains to slow down to walking pace as they approached.38 • Shambu Lama (40), 01/03/2011 A Nepalese man, Lama committed suicide at the Gifhorn train station (Lower Saxony). He had been in Germany since 1996 with a ‘tolerated’ (Duldung) status, but in February 2011 the Aliens’ Office notified him that he was to be deported within days, despite his fourteen years of residence and his tenmonth old German-born son. The Aliens’ Office disputed his paternity and ignored a request from the Braunschweig administrative court to lift the deportation and grant a residence permit. Lama lay down on a railway line and was hit by a train. His lawyer claimed that the deportation notice ‘drove him into such a mentally hopeless IRR | European Research Progamme Briefing No. 10 12