The Home Affairs Department’s Head of Immigration and Law Enforcement, Stephen van Neel, has revealed that 90% of Malawian nationals gathered at the Mayor’s Walk holding site in Pietermaritzburg lack legal documentation to be in South Africa.
Thousands of displaced Malawian nationals in Durban are being processed to return to their country.
Van Neel says there is a need for tighter border security.
He says, “What we’ve been seeing in Durban with Malawians in particular in the last, say, week or two that we are processing, first, 90% of them do not have documents.”
“You might find some have passports, but this passport is also already lapsed. A third category that you would find that people came into the country, they were given 30 days in Beit Bridge, but then at the end of the day, they stayed here for nine months, 12 months, even up to two years.”
Van Neel adds,” So that is one area that we still have to tighten on in when people come into the country, that they are complying with all the regulations.”
DISAPPOINTMENT
Some foreign nationals have expressed disappointment at having to leave South Africa amid tensions in some quarters surrounding undocumented immigrants.
Frank Kanduru, who says he arrived in South Africa in 2000, says he has lived peacefully in the country for many years.
Despite his decision to return to Malawi, Kanduru says he would consider coming back to South Africa in the future if given the opportunity to do so.
He says, “ I am going home now and it’s better to go home as I cannot work here anymore, but I am happy to go home. South Africa was right, but now they have changed and that is why I need to go home and relax a bit. I can come back, but now it’s better to go home and make the papers and documents. I must come again.”
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Reporting by Kholofelo Teffo and Khalesakhe Mbhense.
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