Switzerland wants to deport a young Russian (17).

Milena* has to go. That has been decided by the Federal Administrative Court. Back to a country from which she fled five years ago with her mother and sister and whose government is currently waging a bloody war against Ukraine: Russia.

Milena is 17 and started her internship in the summer as a nurse and social assistant at the Senevita Aespliz nursing home in Ittigen BE. Before that, she did an internship there for a year – with success. The young woman likes to work. She likes older people. And their employees. She has found friends and feels at home in Bern. Milena speaks good German. Also Swiss German. Yet she, her sister and her mother have to leave the country. All asylum applications were rejected. The family fought back. But the last word was spoken on September 20: the federal administrative court also expelled them from Switzerland. Just a day later, Putin called for mobilization in Russia.

Since it has become clear that she is not allowed to stay here, Milena’s psychological problems have worsened. She suffers from insomnia and, like her mother and sister, from post-traumatic stress disorder – as a result of the events that took place in Russia before she fled. The girls’ father is an anti-government activist. She kept getting calls from men threatening her, says Milena’s mother Vera* (54). Once she was physically attacked; two men grabbed her by the neck. “They said they see every step we take and if the father of my children doesn’t give up, it will end badly for my daughters and me.”

Rape not “enough intense”

Although she filed a report, the police did not help her. From then on, she and her daughters remained almost exclusively within their own four walls. But then something terrible happened to Vera: several men attacked her at an exit from the subway, pushed her into a car, took her into a forest and raped her. “They said the same will happen to my daughters,” Vera says, her face wet with tears.

For Vera it was clear: you have to flee. Shortly afterwards she travels with her daughters to Switzerland. But she denies Vera’s refugee status. In the verdict available to SonntagsBlick, the federal administrative court stated that the incidents described by Vera did not appear to be “sufficiently intense”. You could not explain anything that speaks for a persecution that is relevant to asylum law.

Vera is shocked that even in times of war they are not given asylum. The current situation proves: “In Russia, anything can happen.” Milena is also desperate. She sees no future for herself in Russia. “How can they send us back there, especially now that there’s war? I’m very scared.”

‘I don’t understand why Switzerland does such a thing’

However, the Federal Administrative Court considers the refund reasonable. The verdict available to SonntagsBlick states: “The general human rights situation in the Russian Federation, especially in the capital Moscow, does not make the execution of deportation inadmissible at the moment, even in view of the war against Ukraine.”

In addition, “even taking into account the health aspects, it cannot be assumed that the child’s well-being would be endangered if he were to return to the Russian Federation”. The fact that Milena has made a good start here is again used as an argument for the deportation: it can be deduced from the apprenticeship contract that she quickly gets used to new situations and therefore “will hardly have any difficulty with her reintegration in her home country”. slap Milena’s face.

On Wednesday she had to sign the termination of her apprenticeship contract. “I don’t understand why Switzerland does such a thing. I tried so hard,” she says. “Now we have to sit at home waiting until we have to go to the asylum center and then back to Russia. I’m just crying.”

At Senevita AG, Milena’s eviction is affected. “We deeply regret the decision,” said media spokeswoman Angela Scalese.

SEM does not want to comment

Rosa Keller finds clearer words. The 94-year-old lives in the Senevita Aespliz nursing home and has a good relationship with Milena. She was shocked and angry, Keller says. “It is inhumane to send a young person with a life ahead of him in such a bad situation.”

Milena is reliable and helpful, “just a sweet kid,” Keller says. “Every time she comes into the room, I’m happy.” It was an incredibly wrong decision to turn away people who want jobs with understaffing: “Only total bureaucrats can do something so incomprehensible!”

What will happen to Milena now? The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) refuses to hear her case. The office only explains the general procedure: Russian citizens who receive an expulsion order are given a deadline to voluntarily leave the country. Anyone who lets it pass will be sent back to Russia in a controlled manner via Istanbul or Belgrade. This means that the police take those affected to the airport and travel back alone – or are accompanied on the flight by the police. The last resort would be a special flight. In the current year, 17 rejected asylum seekers of Russian nationality left Switzerland at the end of September. According to the SEM “all voluntarily and unaccompanied”.

Milena and her family’s fear of the Russian regime is reflected in the fact that they don’t want to show their real names and faces in this article. This would have increased the pressure on the authorities to let them stay in Switzerland despite everything. But the worry that something could happen to Vera’s sister, who still lives in Russia, as a result of the news coverage is too great.

* Names changed