were arrested last month<\/a> and detained in overcrowded conditions in Cloverhill prison.<\/p>\nThe mother, daughter, and younger brother were not jailed but they were so traumatised by the experience that they asked authorities to permit the family to return together as a unit to South Africa as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
They fled South Africa after they were attacked by gangs at their farm outside Johannesburg, they said.<\/p>\n
They are fearful of returning to their home, they said. And their farm was stripped of materials in their absence so they do not know where they will go when they are returned to South Africa.<\/p>\n
On Sunday morning, garda\u00ed confirmed it had carried out an operation “removing individuals from the State on foot of deportation orders issued by the minister for justice”.<\/p>\n
The operation resulted in the removal of 63 South African nationals \u2014 28 adult men, 26 adult women, and nine juveniles. The juveniles removed were all part of family groups.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed said the individuals were removed on a chartered flight, which left Dublin on Saturday afternoon for South Africa, and it arrived in the country on Sunday. Garda\u00ed also confirmed that 10 of the individuals removed from the state had been convicted of offences in this jurisdiction.<\/p>\n
One woman who witnessed people with deportation orders being taken by garda\u00ed said that it was a difficult, upsetting day. Multiple families who had lived and worked in Munster while in direct provision had been placed in a hotel in Dublin while awaiting deportation. And multiple people were picked up from this hotel as part of the deportation order.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was horrible today. There is so much tension,\u201d the woman, who asked not to be named, said. \u201cGarda\u00ed came and picked up a family from the centre. They were crying on the floor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A bus was waiting outside carrying other people, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s frightening. You don\u2019t know if you\u2019re going to be the next one,\u201d she said. \u201cSomeone puts a file on the GNIB\u2019s desk and they just come and pick you up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The woman is alone in Ireland with her six children. Her husband disappeared and she believes he was murdered by a gang that was harassing the family at their business, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s too much. Sometimes I feel like breaking. But how can I break when I\u2019m a mother alone trying to protect my children?<\/p>\n
\n Going back means death. It would be easier to take my life and die here\n <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t understand when you\u2019re coming from somewhere very frightening you don\u2019t want to go back there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know where I will end up if I go back.\u201d Sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication is keeping her going, calming her nerves through an extremely worrying time, she said.<\/p>\n
Another family understood to be being deported to South Africa is the Oyekanmi family.<\/p>\n
A large protest was held in support of the family\u2019s request to remain in Ireland outside the Department of Justice in February.<\/p>\n
But Titilayo Oluwakemi Oyekanmi and her three sons, Samuel, Joseph and Genesis, who are aged between five and 18, are understood to be facing deportation.<\/p>\n
The boys have been attending local schools in Dublin and are talented athletes, playing successfully with local sports clubs.<\/p>\n
Their local community had asked the Department of Justice to allow them to stay but their deportation order has not been revoked.<\/p>\n
It is believed that many of those facing deportation may have been arrested earlier in February, when 38 asylum seekers were arrested in a planned deportation operation in Dublin.<\/p>\n
Twenty-three men and 15 women were arrested after they went to sign on to notify the State of their whereabouts, as requested, at the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB).<\/p>\n
On Sunday, justice minister Jim O’Callaghan also confirmed the deportations, saying it is the second charter operation this year.<\/p>\n
“Charter flights are now a routine and essential part of immigration enforcement for the state,” Mr O’Callaghan said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Without effective enforcement measures, our immigration laws would be undermined, and I want to ensure that there is public confidence in the application of our laws in this area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“If a person does not have a legal permission to be in the State, or has been involved in criminality, they will be removed. I would like to thank the members of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na and officials from my department for their continued hard work in conducting these complex operations.”<\/p>\n
The Department of Justice previously said it has taken action to significantly improve immigration enforcement measures and increase removals.<\/p>\n
In 2025, 4,700 deportation orders were signed, an increase of 96% compared to 2024. In 2025, six charter flight operations removed 205 people from the State.<\/p>\n
Of these, five operations to non-EU destinations removed 182 people who were subject to deportation orders.<\/p>\n
One operation removed 23 EU citizens on grounds of criminality.<\/p>\n
There were 434 deportations in total last year, 185 of which were enforced.<\/p>\n
There were 1,616 voluntary returns.<\/p>\n
\u201cA deportation order is a legal order to leave the State,\u201d the department said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny person who has been ordered to leave the State and fails to do so, within the timeframe issued with the deportation order, is committing a criminal offence and can be arrested without warrant if they come into contact with An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch an order remains on the person\u2019s record permanently, unless revoked \u2014 it means they may not enter Ireland again in future.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A deportation operation in Dublin has seen at least one family who had lived in Cork for years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,61,1629,60,43],"class_list":["post-323789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-immigration","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}