Siyabonga Twala has been in limbo in Ankara ever since he was blocked from boarding a flight back to Manchester last December. His son, Mason, nine, and his parents and siblings had to return home without him.
Twala thought the matter would be resolved within days but a year on, he is still stranded. He said he was unable to sleep and was facing Christmas alone in a bedsit in Ankara, with no friends or family. "It's just the loneliness of it." He added: "It's not a way to treat someone, to expect them to get ripped out from what they're used to, and then act as if that person didn't have a life in that country ... I just think the whole thing is a sham and a way for [the Home Office] to look tough."
Twala, 34, was in transit, on his way back from a holiday to South Africa with his family, when he was prevented from boarding a flight home at Istanbul airport.
The trip was the first time he had returned to the country of his birth since his family moved from Durban to Chester when he was 15.
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