With Joburg’s only refugee reception office now closed, local asylum-seekers are making the costly trip to Pretoria – only to be turned away when they arrive.
Home Affairs has directed Joburg asylum-seekers to the Tshwane Interim Refugee Reception Office on Soutter Street, but the message has not reached everyone, as many locals are visiting the department’s Marabastad regional office, also in Pretoria, instead.
About a thousand foreigners swarmed the Marabastad office’s gates before 7am yesterday. Many had slept outside the office overnight. Others had left Joburg before dawn in taxis, costing R30 a trip.
As security guards emerged to open the gates, the crowd lurched forward, rocking back and forth towards the small opening. Two security guards smacked batons against the gates and waved them in the air, demanding that the crowd move back.
Minutes later, the guards allowed a small group inside before closing the gates, apparently for the day. Police vehicles arrived on the scene soon after, moving most of the remaining refugees away from the gates and to a field across the street.
Migrant rights groups have slammed the Department of Home Affairs over its failure to create a new refugee office in Joburg. In March, the Joburg High Court ordered the Crown Mines office shut after local business had complained about refugees defecating in the streets and creating a public nuisance.
The office closed its doors to the public last week and Home Affairs directed Joburg’s asylum-seekers to Pretoria.
“That has created a major problem,” said Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, head of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme for Lawyers for Human Rights. “South Africa receives the highest number of asylum-seekers of any country in the world, and many of them move to Johannesburg.
“The most refugees live in and around Joburg, compared to any other metro in the country.”
But despite a call last week by Human Rights Watch for a new refugee office in Joburg, Home Affairs says its Pretoria offices are equipped to process the region’s refugees.”
Department spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said: ”It may take a bit longer, given the numbers, but ultimately everybody will get served.”