Police officers have raided a mosque to remove an Afghan family, who are refusing to leave the UK.

On Thursday morning 12 police officers, two of them in riot gear, sealed off the building in the West Midlands and used a metal battering ram to break into the building.

Farid and Feriba Ahmadi and their two children took refuge in the Ghausia Jamia Mosque in Lye, near Stourbridge, last month.

The Home Office had ruled they had no case to stay in the country on compassionate grounds and should be deported to Germany on Friday.

'Heavy-handed'

Hajikhadim Hussein, an elder at the mosque, said morning prayers had just finished when the raid occurred.

"I think very badly of this morning.

"The way they caught them and broke the door of the mosque. If they were coming and talking with the mosque committee maybe we could have found some way.

Soraya Walton is helping Farid and Feriba Ahmadi

"This family are very, very upset. They have no home in Afghanistan and no family. They think they are not safe there."

Mr and Mrs Ahmadi were taken away by the authorities and it is unclear where they are now.

Their children were not in the mosque when the police arrived and are staying at a secret location with family friend Soraya Walton.

Ms Walton said: "I am glad the children were not in there this morning having to face a whole squad of police officers and Home Office officials.

"Nobody ever actually thought they (the Immigration Service) were going to do this.

"I am rather shocked by the heavy-handedness of how immigration deal with this type of situation."

Mrs Walton says she plans to keep the children until the Ahmadis are allowed to stay in the UK.

'At large'

The family have been living in Lye near Stourbridge for the past year after fleeing the Taleban.

They were smuggled illegally into the UK from Germany on the back of a lorry after leaving Afghanistan.

Supporters of the family have been holding demonstrations in an attempt to persuade the Home Office to change its mind.

They say the Ahmadis do not want to return to Germany because they suffered racial abuse there.

The Refugee Council said it was concerned about the "level of force" used against the family.

Alison Fenney, head of policy at the Refugee Council, said: "If a family has to be removed, then it should be done in a humane and dignified way and that doesn't put their lives at risk on return."