A memorial is being planned for Indian teenager Zarine Rentia, who died after a public campaign to allow her to stay in the United Kingdom failed.
Rentia, 15, suffered from the rare disease Fanconi-Bickel Syndrome. She returned to India in February after a judge turned down her appeal to stay in the UK on the ground that she could be treated in India.
Rentia's school has planned a memorial event for May 2, when two cherry trees will be planted outside the front entrance to the South Camden Community school in Zarine's memory. The front page of the school's term newsletter has also been dedicated to her.
The school's council, which raised funds for her to stay in the UK, is also planning other ways they can pay tribute.
Rentia would have been 16 next month.
Rentia died in India in March, leaving a pall of gloom over her school here. Her teachers, local MP and several others had campaigned publicly, including in the House of
Commons, for her to stay in the UK, but did not succeed.
Zarine came to the UK in 2004 with her mother Tasnim as visitors. She was later diagnosed with the bone marrow disease Fanconi-Bickel Syndrome, of which doctors say there are only 112 other cases in medical history.
Several of her school friends here are in grief over her death.
"She was always one topic ahead of everyone," said classmate Sahra Sulley, 15. "She would help you with work if you were stressed or behind. Seeing her everyday happy and smiling I never thought she had such an illness. I remember seeing her every day in the maths class. Whenever I look over at where she used to sit its just an empty space without her beautiful smile."
Her friends said that her biggest dream was to be a doctor. Asiya Abdi, 16, said "She used to joke with me, saying "I'm going to be a surgeon doctor and you're going to be my first patient'. We were best friends and I used to push her wheelchair for her."
Gerry Robinson, Rentia's teacher, told the local media: "I never saw Zarine miserable, even when all these bad things were going on in her life. She was an example of how everyone should live their lives. Every challenge she fought to overcome."
Among the heartfelt tributes there is also anger at Zarine's treatment by the Home Office. Even when she was critically ill, immigration officials allegedly impeded her medical treatment.
Rentia was lying in a hospital bed when an appeal against deportation was dismissed earlier this year.
Robinson added: "From a personal point of view, I hope that the Home Office will look carefully at what has happened in Zarine's case and learn from it so that other people are not placed in the same difficult circumstances. To question a child's entitlement to medical treatment when they are suffering from a rare and terminal disease is inhumane."
