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BBC correspondent James Cook on the flat deaths family
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"The claims being made about the Russian family who fell to their deaths in Glasgow are extraordinary.
"We've been told that the father, mother and adult son were seeking asylum from Canada which they had left after making bizarre claims about plots against them.
"The plots were said to involve senior politicians and the use of psychotropic weapons to alter their minds.
"After leaving Canada - where they had actually been granted asylum - they travelled through Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Bremen, Barcelona and Dublin before arriving in the UK in November 2007.
"Here their claim for asylum was refused and they had been told to leave their 15th floor flat in Glasgow's Red Road by Sunday, the day they died.
"But a source familiar with the case claims that no deportation order had been made and that the family could have made a fresh claim for asylum."
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I wonder if they knew they could make a fresh claim? It looks as tho one of them might have had mental health issues, but how sad that things got to this stage, one can only hope they are now at peace.
Would you like to be refused asylum and have this hanging over you?
A Liberian woman cuddles her two-year-old son as she pauses to look at the candles and signs which have been placed where the three people died.
"I'm scared they might come to get me," she said in reference to the Home Office.
Tina has been here for two-and-a-half years, having fled Liberia because her family wanted to perform a circumcision on her.
Her application for asylum has been refused, and she says life is very difficult.
She said: "The Home Office don't even look at people's cases any more, they just refuse."
She dreads having to return to Liberia: "Since I've disobeyed my parents there's no home for me.
"The police told me 'your father is right, this is our culture'."
Tina is now living on food vouchers, which leaves no money for clothes or other extras.
"I will face what I have to," she said.
But she added: "If I have to go home I will have my son adopted here."
There but for the grace of God go any one of us, we don't choose where we are born or what we have to cope with in life.
Lizx
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It is sad about the family but please read the link I have put on.
They were given asylum in Canada but had words with the authorities over there.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8557327.stm
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I fear there will be more cases like this if the current climate continues, how terribly sad that three people felt so desperate that this seemed their only option.
Reading this which is a link from the story on BBC
'I fear every knock on my door'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8555763.stm
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Liz....that is really sad, shockingly sad. We don't know how lucky we are!!
RIP.
jude x
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Flats plunge victims were 'family'
Last Updated: Monday, 08 March 2010, 21:05 GMT- Search: Flats fall inquiry Glasgow
Red Road flats in Glasgow, where three people fell to their deaths
Three asylum seekers who died after they plunged from a high-rise block of flats are believed to have been a mother, father and son, a charity said.
The bodies of two men and a woman were found at the bottom of a 31-storey block in Petershill Drive, Springburn, Glasgow.
Their deaths are not being treated as suspicious.
Scotland-based charity Positive Action in Housing, which called for an inquiry into the deaths, said the three had their applications to stay in the UK rejected.
Robina Qureshi, director of the Scotland-based charity Positive Action in Housing, said the three are believed to be originally from the former Soviet Union.
She said: "We know that they were asylum seekers. We know that their asylum application had been refused and were facing imminent destitution under the asylum rules. The son was in his 20s and the mother was in her 40s.
"We believe that there should be a public inquiry into these deaths, and particularly to do with the impact that the UK Borders Agency has on the lives of asylum seekers who have lived here for years but live in the fear of removal.
"We want to know what role the UK Borders Agency (UKBA) played. We ask that the UKBA issue an immediate statement about the suicides."
Ms Qureshi continued: "In particular, we want to know; did the UK Borders Agency recently communicate with the three suicide victims over their asylum case? Were UK Borders Agency removal officials knocking at the door of the three suicide victims at 63 Petershill Drive, Springburn on Sunday morning when the suicides took place?
"Have the relatives of the deceased been informed? What plans does the UKBA have to remove their bodies to their countries of origin?"
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How sad that they felt driven to do such a dreadful deed.
May they rest in peace, together now for always.
Lizx
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