World Refugee Week: seeking asylum in the UK

Amy Merone talks to Innocent, an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo, about his home country and his experiences in the UK.

Innocent from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Innocent arrived in the UK last year seeking asylum after escaping from one of the DRC's notorious prisons. He was arrested in the capital city of Kinshasa while working as a political activist. He and other young men and women were protesting against the dictatorship of rebels that the country's people are locked in.

In the last ten years more than 3 million civilians have been killed as a consequence of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Men, women and children have been indiscriminately killed, tortured and raped by brutal militiamen bent on gaining power in the country.

As an asylum seeker, Innocent has experienced first hand the brutality of civil war in the DRC.

"Arms are used all the time in the Congo. I am against arms. I have seen too many times the very bad effects that they have. In our country, rebel leaders want power and because they cannot secure power democratically, they use arms instead. They are used to kill and torture people and to exploit resources.

"In the Congo children as young as eight are recruited to fight as kadogos - child soldiers. You see them carrying arms as if they are toys. But they are not toys and these children are trained to kill. Children as young as eight."

This is a war that has left more than 180,000 people dead from gunshot wounds between 2000 and 2003. Around 85 per cent of people living near the frontline in the DRC have been affected by gun violence, and half of the hundreds of thousands of people who have died in the country between 1998 and 2000 have been women and children. Yet it is a war that many people still refuse to accept has consequences.

Since his arrival in the UK, Innocent's application for asylum has been refused on the basis that there is no evidence to support his case. "There is a definite attitude of disbelief," says Innocent. "People think that every asylum seeker must be a liar. People do not want to believe that this sort of thing could happen. But it does.

"Last year the BBC World Service went to the Congo and brought back evidence of the human rights abuses that were happening there, but still people refuse to believe us."

As an asylum seeker, Innocent is put up in poor quality housing and given just £35 a week in vouchers off which to survive. The vouchers can only be exchanged for food, often from expensive shops and coffee bars. Many asylum seekers experience negative attitudes from other shoppers and indeed, the people who serve them. For his other personal needs he must rely on the generosity and support of campaigners and friends.

Yet despite the animosity that he and thousands of other asylum seekers living in the UK must face, he still remains optimistic.

"People generally have been very positive towards me. I have had negative experiences where people have threatened me, but now, in the area that I live, people are starting to understand the complexity of asylum and what is happening in countries all over Africa. I only wish that people could learn about my situation in the Congo and that of so many others."