SCHOOL children have launched a campaign to prevent a nine-year-old fellow pupil from being sent back to a war-torn African country.

The Home Office have ruled that Tony Lola and his mother Mireille must return to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), despite fears that their lives will be in danger.

Tony’s mother was an activist in the Movement for the Liberation of Congo - a party opposed to the government of Joseph Kabila. She fled the country of the UK in fear of her life in 2002.

Over Christmas 2005 Tony was arrested and held in Congolese police custody.

When he was released his extended family sent him to the UK in 2006 where he applied for asylum status along with his mother. Tony now lives with his mum on Lane End Road in Burnage,

The father of the family was also arrested in the DRC and his whereabouts are not known. Pupils and staff at Didsbury C of E Primary, on E Elm Grove, and members of the nearby St James and Emmanuel Church were spurred into action when they learned last Friday that final documents to remove Tony and Mireille were being drawn up at the Home Office on Tuesday of this week.

The assistant church and school choir director at the school, Mandy Pierlejewskli, said the choir, Tony and his friends had been assembled on Monday and told the news.

"They were devastated. Tony and other children were in tears because they are so desperate for him to stay.

"Up until then we have been protecting them from the grim situation but because it’s so urgent to step up the campaign we decided to involve them.

"He has made so many friends. He has learned English since he came here and has actually taught some of the children French which is spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He attends the local church with his mother who is an educated woman and is studying at a local college.

"She is a keen member of the church and sings in the gospel choir.

"It would be terrible if they were sent back to face extreme danger."

Supporters of Tony and Mireille have launched a petition asking Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to allow son and mother to stay in the UK.

The four to 11 year-olds in the choir have recorded a song in support of Tony. It will be issued on a CD to boost the campaign and will be available on the church website www.stjamesandemmanuel.org/.

One of the campaign organisers, Ruth Penfold, 43, who has four children at Tony’s school said: "Tony has almost become one of the family.

"We have been on trips and camping together.

"My children have become his close friends. It would be a terrible tragedy if he and his mother were forced to leave the country."

The head of Didsbury C of E, Matthew Whitehead, said: "Tony’s arrival here has been a wonderful learning opportunity for our whole school and it would be very sad to lose his cheerful outlook on life and the perspective he brings to his learning, which has proved an education for us all."

The Democratic Republic of Congo is in the grip of a five-year-old civil war which has caused a humanitarian crisis described as the worst emergency to unfold in Africa in recent decades.

Three million have died as a direct result of the fighting or through disease and malnutrition.

Several rebel armies are fighting troops loyal to the Kabila government, the most prominent of which being the Ugandan-backed force commanded by General Laurent Nkunda which took provincial capital of Goma with great loss of life last autumn. Tony and Mireille are being helped to make a new appeal against removal by lawyers from the Immigration Advisory Service.

Mireille said: "We feel safe here. If we go back to the Democratic Republic of Congo we will be arrested.

"There is no democracy in this country and they kill people.

"Tony is happy here. He has friends and loves playing football. He is a supporter of Manchester United and has been to matches with his friends."