First Sign of Life in Five Weeks: Sisters Hear of Court's Rejection
Translated from Swedish, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.
TLDR
- After five weeks of silence amid conflict, two sisters deported from Sweden to Iran have made contact, confirming they are alive but in a dire situation.
- The sisters, Donya and Darya Javid Gonbadi, were deported in October and have been unreachable since the conflict escalated.
- A politician who supports their case informed them that Sweden's Migration Court of Appeal will not review their case, crushing their hope of returning.
The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports on a glimmer of hope for the Javid Gonbadi sisters, Donya and Darya, who were deported from Mölndal, Sweden, to Iran in October. After five weeks of complete silence, during which Sweden has been embroiled in escalating conflict and bombings, the family and friends in Sweden finally received a call from the sisters on Thursday evening. This contact, however, brought grim news: while they are alive, their situation is described as "terrible." They have been forced to move frequently and are largely cut off from information available in Sweden.
It was fantastic to hear their voices, but they are having a terrible time. They have had to move around and lack almost all the information that we have here.
Leo Ahmed, a left-wing politician who has become involved in the sisters' case and now knows the family, received the call while on his way home from work. He relayed the devastating news that Sweden's Migration Court of Appeal has decided not to take up their case. This was the first time the sisters themselves learned that their hope of returning to Sweden was officially extinguished. Ahmed described their reaction as "very sad" but vowed to continue fighting for them.
They are traumatized and desperate. But they are alive.
The case highlights the agonizing reality faced by individuals caught in the complexities of deportation policies, especially when combined with international conflict. While Swedish media have covered the "teenage deportations" extensively, the sisters' current plight underscores the profound human cost and the desperate circumstances that can arise when legal avenues are exhausted and individuals are left vulnerable in unstable regions. The Swedish perspective often focuses on the legal processes and the rights of individuals within the Swedish system, but this story forces a confrontation with the harsh realities beyond those borders.
They were of course very sad, but I tried to tell them that we continue to fight.
DistantNews Editorial
Originally published by Dagens Nyheter in Swedish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.
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