Refugee centres re-located

The revelations follow the closure of Crown mines Refugee Reception Centre in Johannesburg in June after businesses in the area successfully applied for the closure of the centre, accusing the asylum seekers of polluting the environment. It was the second such centre to close after the Rosettenville Refugee Reception Centre was closed in 2009 following similar complaints.

The closure and movement of the centre to Pretoria is causing hardship to tens of thousands of asylum seekers living in Johannesburg. They are forced to travel 140km to Pretoria to lodge claims or renew their permits to remain in South Africa, at huge financial and personal cost.

In Cape Town, there is a court order to move the refugee centre, and the Department of Home Affairs is now renting on a month to month basis while looking for a more permanent alternative. In Durban, the lease agreement expires on October 31, 2011. Sources told this publication that businesses were reluctant to renew the lease agreements.

Over the years, South Africa’s government has come under fire for failing to establish refugee reception centres in premises owned by the government. A Department of Home Affairs official said the organization was aware of the impending expiry of the leases and said they were committed to finding alternatives.

“The Department of Home Affairs expresses a desire to have permanent Refugee Reception Centres that are in good, humane conditions for both its employees and asylum seekers, and would therefore look at alternatives,” he said.

However, given its past failure to find alternative premises after the closure of two centres in Johannesburg, asylum seekers and refugee rights organizations are not convinced.

“Once again, thousands of Zimbabweans and others seeking asylum in South Africa are at risk of unlawful deportation because of bad planning and misplaced policy decisions. Closing the refugee reception offices could precipitate another perfect storm of out-of-reach registration and mass deportations that will put refugees’ lives at risk,” said Siphokazi Mthathi, South Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

South Africa has the world’s largest number of registered asylum seekers, most of them Zimbabwean. Despite South Africa’s recent attempts to improve its asylum system, there is a backlog of hundreds of thousands of cases.