Pretoria - The five refugees who appeared in court after they were evicted from outside the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Brooklyn, Pretoria, where they were camping, will have to wait one more week – behind bars – to find out if they are to be charged.
The five refugees are among a group of more than 100 who had been camping outside the UNHCR offices since 2019, following the outbreak of xenophobic attacks that occurred in parts of Johannesburg, pleading for assistance or repatriation to another Third World country.
Eight refugees were set to appear before the Hatfield Magistrate’s Court on Monday after they voluntarily left with the police following their eviction from the UNHCR offices on Friday, but only five were detained.
The group, most of whom hail from the South Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are to be charged with Contravention of the Immigration Act.
Refugee Tarayi Catherine Tuliya details in court her struggle in getting documentation from the South Africa government since fleeing from the DRC. #Refugees #UnitedNations pic.twitter.com/ovP1cuaqm6
The case was postponed on Monday as the courts required the services of a Swahili interpreter to confirm their addresses and for the three women and two men to arrange for legal representation after they indicated they would not be using the services of Legal Aid South Africa.
Professor Lee Stone, who has been assisting the refugees in her personal capacity, said coming to court yesterday they were optimistic that the refugees who had voluntarily walked into police cells would be released, especially as they had not tried to evade the police.
Stone said they were hoping the refugees could be reunited with the rest of the group who were being accommodated on a farm on the outskirts of Bronkhorstspruit.
However, the matter had to be postponed again after the state prosecutor requested that representations for the group be written, not oral representations.
Stone said as a result of this instruction, the earliest date the matter could be brought back to court would be in a week, meaning the five would have to remain at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional facility.
“Despite this delay we are quite optimistic that we will succeed in court to have the refugees released without any charges being enforced against them.”
Stone said she and others who had been assisting the refugees had also been coming to court to get bail for three other refugees, one of whom was finally being released. However, his wife and two sons would remain in detention.
“Its a very unfortunate situation and it is a travesty of justice the fact that refugees who've had to flee the home of their birth and everything they know and everything they own and leave it behind, hoping that South Africa could provide them with peace, security and stability, South Africa has failed them,” said Stone.
“Despite this, we hope that we can find a durable solution for this group of 100 refugees who are now stuck in no-man's land of Bronkhorstspruit where it’s not accessible and the people are struggling to get food, water or electricity.”
The case against the refugees will return to the Hatfield Magistrate’s Court on May 2.
Pretoria News