A Ghanaian woman who was deported from Britain while undergoing treatment for terminal cancer has died in her home country just hours before friends learned of plans to bring her back to the UK for private treatment.
Ama Sumani suffered from malignant myeloma and was receiving kidney dialysis at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, but was deported after her UK visa expired.
Her removal from hospital by immigration officials in January was described as "atrocious barbarism" by the leading medical journal the Lancet.
Among her supporters was the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, who said today: "I am enormously sad to hear of the death of Ama Sumani. I believe her death is on the conscience of this nation because we deported her when it was against every humanitarian instinct to do so."
Sumani died in hospital in Accra yesterday, two hours before friends rang with the news that they had found a UK doctor willing to treat her condition, a cancer of the bone marrow, and were about to apply for an emergency visa to allow her to return.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/20/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices