Members of a family living in sanctuary in a Winnipeg church say they won't return to Pakistan following a deportation order because they're afraid of returning to the country.

The family — Hassan Raza, his wife Sarfraz Kausar and their six children — is living at the Crescent Fort Rouge United Church to avoid deportation, which was supposed to take place Friday morning.

Hassan Raza, left, his wife Sarfraz Kausar with one-year-old Seema Raza, friend and interpreter Kiranjit Chahal, and 13-year-old Rubab Raza at the Crescent Fort Rouge United Church in Winnipeg, where the Raza family has taken sanctuary.
(CBC)

Since leaving Pakistan in 1998, the family has lived in the United States, and has been in Canada the last four years. Two of the children were born here and are Canadian citizens.

But the family has now exhausted all legal options to stay in Canada.

On Thursday, a Federal Court judge rejected the Shia Muslim family's refugee claim that it faces persecution in Pakistan, which is largely Sunni Muslim.

Rubab Raza, 13, and her brother Mohsin, 12, show their new home: a meeting room in the Crescent Fort Rouge United Church.
(CBC)

Rubab Raza, 13, said she and her siblings are angry about being told to leave.

"We really don't know anything about our country. We don't know how to write in our language, even speak in our language that well," she said at the church on Friday. "And they're just telling us to leave now.

"If they had said it when we came, like the early time, maybe it would be easier. But now it's not that easy."

The 13-year-old said she's also scared of going to Pakistan: "My mom has told me that it's really bad there — people get killed, robbed, raped … It's a really violent place."

Living in church

The judge ordered the Raza family to leave Friday, which led the family to pack up belongings quickly and seek refuge at the church on Thursday.

Rev. Barb Janes said she felt compelled to help the family.

"Since Canada abolished capital punishment, this refugee and immigration process is the only process left in our legal system where we might actually be sending people into their death or a very dangerous situation with no recourse," she said Friday.

Now Janes said she has written to Monte Solberg, the minister of citizenship and immigration, to try to get the Raza case reviewed.

Until they receive some kind of response, family members cannot leave the church.