Actor Firth backing fight to stop deportation of severely ill woman

He took a break from filming in Thailand to issue a message of support for Rose Akhalu, 48, from Leeds, who was diagnosed with acute kidney disease months after arriving to study at Leeds University.

He said: “Few things are this straightforward: Rose is sick, if we don’t help her she dies.

“The decision is entirely ours. I’m sure saving her won’t compromise the Government’s enforced removal policy. This is an exceptional case.”

Ms Akhalu arrived in the UK in September 2004 on a student visa, to study for a Masters Degree. She unexpectedly developed end-stage renal failure in 2005 and remained on dialysis until she received a kidney transplant at St James’s Hospital in Leeds, almost three years ago.

She has applied for leave to remain in the UK but that has been refused.

After reporting to the immigration centre as usual last Saturday Ms Akhalu was picked up and taken to Yarl’s Wood detention centre.

There she was served with removal directions for Lagos, Nigeria on June 7. She was released from the centre after her lawyers took out an emergency injunction to allow her to attend a judicial review scheduled for July 24.

Because she has a transplanted organ, Ms Akhalu, a widow, needs to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of her life. That medication is expensive in Nigeria and, with no family to support her, she cannot afford to pay for it.

Patients who are given a donated organ need suppressant drugs to prevent their own body’s natural defences from rejecting it

Dr James Tattershall, Ms Akhalu’s renal specialist, said: “She’ll be on anti rejection medication for the rest of her life.

“Now that her visa has run out the government wants Roseline to return to Nigeria – but the drugs she needs aren’t available to her there. Deportation will be a death sentence.”

Supporters have launched an online petition as part of their campaign to keep Ms Akhalu in the UK.