A NEWPORT politician has agreed to meet an asylum seeker who is battling to stay in the country.

Newport East MP Jess Morden will meet Cynthia Orgun, 31, on February 3 after hearing about her plight in the Argus.

Mrs Orgun fled Nigeria with three of her four children over two years ago after her husband was tortured to death.

After seeking asylum in the UK she applied to the Home Office for permanent residence and was sent to live in Dewstow Street, Newport.

But her application and a subsequent appeal was rejected because she could not produce enough evidence to show her life was under threat.

She is now awaiting the outcome of a fresh application.

Since her story appeared in the Argus on Wednesday, Mrs Orgun has been inundated with offers of support from the community.

More than 100 people in the city are backing her.

"I will discuss Mrs Orgun's situation with her because issues like this can be quite complicated," said Ms Morden.

Mrs Orgun claims that in March 2003, after a long dispute over oilfields in the area, men posing as police officers took her husband Kingsley, 37, away. He was tortured and killed.

Mrs Orgun claims she was also kidnapped while six months pregnant, hung up by her wrists and questioned, and her son Andrew, seven, attacked with a machete.

If she is deported, her three-year-old twin daughters, Brenda and Brandy, would stay in the UK because of medical reasons and Andrew would remain as his school is here.

Her eldest daughter Courage, 13, is in Nigeria.