Members of Islamic association expelled

Guinea-Bissau's police expelled three Pakistani members of the Ahmadiyya Islamic group on Wednesday, leaving them at the Senegalese border with no identification documents, the Portuguese news agency, Lusa, reported Hameed Ullah Zaffar, the group's national director as saying.

"They are in a serious situation. They were taken to the border with no passports, no documents whatsoever, with nothing," Zaffar said. The expelled Pakistanis are a doctor and two missionaries who worked in a clinic the association opened in July in the eastern city of Bafata, Lusa reported.

Their expulsion followed a presidential order on Monday accusing the Ahmadiyya of causing "serious misunderstandings" within the Muslim community and instructing it to leave Guinea-Bissau within 48 hours. President Kumba Yala announced the measure during a meeting with Muslim community leaders in wake of allegations that the group was involved in political activities, Lusa reported. Yala's religious affairs advisor, Sory Djalo, resigned on the grounds that he was not consulted.

Zaffar and other Ahmadiyya members were still in the capital, Bissau, on Wednesday, pending a response from the authorities to an appeal against the expulsion order, Lusa said.

The Ahmadiyya are a moderate Islamic group which is active in about 50 countries, Lusa said. They have been in Guinea Bissau, nearly half of whose population is Muslim, since 1995.