TWO Congolese sisters have been spared having to return to their native country after Government said they could stay.

Leitisha and Jeanine Kamba, have been allowed to return to their home in Stockton after being placed in a detention centre last month.

However, their brother and carer Blaise Kamba, 28, will be sent back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday after immigration officers refused to revisit his case.

In 2006, the three siblings fled their home country after Blaise, who was an active member of the Movement National Congolais Lumumba, attended a demonstration and was subsequently detained and imprisoned.

He escaped and now fears that returning home would lead to almost certain death.

Their father died in 1995 and they have had no news on their mother since 2003.

Leitisha, 19, and Jeanine, 16, both students at Stockton Riverside College, are said to be devastated by the news.

Catherine Ramos, a trustee for Justice First, said: The sisters have been split up from their brother. If he is sent back and then they are subsequently sent back, what kind of life will they face.

It is breaking up a very close family. They have all only got each other.