The Stream

UK students fight to save classmate from deportation

Netizens #FightForYashika, petitioning Home Office to allow 19-year-old and family to stay in the country.

Update: Yashika Bageerathi has been deported from the UK on an Air Mauritius flight Wednesday evening.

An online petition launched to stop the Home Office from deporting Bageerathi received more than 175,000 signatures.

Students at a school in London were campaigning to save their classmate from deportation. Oasis Academy Hadley student Yashika Bageerathi was detained by the UK Home Office on March 19 and was deported on Wednesday. 

Bageerathi fled Mauritius to avoid gang violence in 2011, seeking asylum with her mother in the UK. But upon her 18th birthday, their cases were separated, Bageerathi’s mother told The Stream.

Outraged, her classmates, teachers and community started an online campaign to stop the UK Home Office from deporting Bageerathi, months before she completes her education.

Air Mauritius posted a statement on its website via Twitter about Bageerathi’s flight: