A prize-winning author has said she was left feeling “numb” after being stopped from flying home to the UK from Brussels.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, 53, who was born in Uganda and has British citizenship, said she was blocked from checking in by a Ryanair employee in Brussels who took issue with her travel documents.
The author, who is also a university lecturer, has lived in the UK for 21 years and was returning from a literary festival when the incident happened.
Ms Makumbi was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK in 2012 and was travelling on her Ugandan passport with her biometric residence permit.
She said her indefinite leave to remain card had an expiry date, which was April this year, but due to her having indefinite leave to remain the date is not relevant.
“I tried to explain to this guy, but he just did not even look at me or give me a moment to explain. He just said we’re not going anywhere," she told The Guardian newspaper.
“I explained to them that I’m a British citizen but they were not having it."
The author, who won the Windham-Campbell literature prize in 2018 and in 2014 the Commonwealth short story prize, contacted the UK embassy in Belgium, who helped her to return home on the Eurostar instead.
Her colleague Gary Younge, a professor of sociology at the University of Manchester, described the incident as "shocking".
"Shocked to hear that award-winning writer and British citizen Jennifer Makumbi has been barred from boarding a @Ryanair flight to Manchester from Brussels without any explanation," he tweeted.
"Jennifer, who’s been in England for over 20 years and married to a Brit for over a decade, is a lecturer at Lancaster University.
"It shouldn’t happen to anyone, regardless of credentials. The fact it has happened to her shows just how fragile our rights are. It’s like Windrush in reverse."
He later tweeted: "Delighted to report that thanks to consular intervention Jennifer Makumbi is on her way home on Eurostar. Still livid that it should have happened at all."
Her publisher Oneworld described her treatment as "shocking".
“You’d think @Ryanair could simply Google a prize-winning author who has lived in the UK for over a decade, completed her MA and PhD in the UK and is now a university lecturer here,” the publisher tweeted.
Ryanair said she was not denied boarding as she never arrived at her gate and her boarding pass was not scanned at the checkpoints.
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The Bio
Hometown: Bogota, Colombia
Favourite place to relax in UAE: the desert around Al Mleiha in Sharjah or the eastern mangroves in Abu Dhabi
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The most expensive investment mistake you will ever make
When is the best time to start saving in a pension? The answer is simple – at the earliest possible moment. The first pound, euro, dollar or dirham you invest is the most valuable, as it has so much longer to grow in value. If you start in your twenties, it could be invested for 40 years or more, which means you have decades for compound interest to work its magic.
“You get growth upon growth upon growth, followed by more growth. The earlier you start the process, the more it will all roll up,” says Chris Davies, chartered financial planner at The Fry Group in Dubai.
This table shows how much you would have in your pension at age 65, depending on when you start and how much you pay in (it assumes your investments grow 7 per cent a year after charges and you have no other savings).
|
Age
|
$250 a month
|
$500 a month
|
$1,000 a month
|
|
25
|
$640,829
|
$1,281,657
|
$2,563,315
|
|
35
|
$303,219
|
$606,439
|
$1,212,877
|
|
45
|
$131,596
|
$263,191
|
$526,382
|
|
55
|
$44,351
|
$88,702
|
$177,403
|
