In a ramshackle Yokohama house smelling of damp and rotting wood, Nasir Qadri and his family await their fate.

The Pakistani national, his wife, Shaheena, and their five children are asylum seekers who arrived in Japan on Aug. 25, 2009. But although they have survived the March 11 quake and months of hand to mouth existence, they are in despair and threatening suicide.

For most of their stay here they have been living on emergency aid from the government-run Refugee Assistance Headquarters. But this month, the money was abruptly terminated, leaving them effectively destitute.