Home Affairs washes its hands of refugees 

The possibility of repatriation is still on the table for refugees who were camping in and around the Central Methodist Church in Cape Town.

“The issue of repatriation was never the first choice; the first choice was to integrate people back into society,” explained Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi.

Addressing a joint parliamentary committee meeting with the Department of Home Affairs and the Select Committee on Security and Justice on Tuesday 28 April, Motsoaledi said the refugees are still refusing the option of reintegration.

The group had been protesting against xenophobic treatment in South Africa since October 2019 and were demanding resettlement to a third country.

They are now being housed in temporary shelter facilities. A total of 560 refugees were relocated from inside the church to Paint City in Bellville while a further 350 were moved from outside the Cape Town Central Police Station to a separate site at Wingfield Military Base.

This was after a skirmish between the national government, the Western Cape provincial administration and the City of Cape Town over public land. The City was accused of trying to interfere with plans to move the refugees, at one point citing that both the Bellville and Wingfield sites were “not ready for occupation”.

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The City had already moved refugees from outside the church on 1 March after being granted an order by the Western Cape High Court to enforce its bylaws. Many had been camping outside the Cape Town Central Police Station before being moved to Wingfield.

On 10 March, the Home Affairs Committee held a meeting, alongside the City of Cape Town, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) and the South African Police Service, where they were given a month to come up with a plan to resolve the crisis.

To date, no clear plan has been drafted. The committee is still awaiting recommendations from the City of Cape Town and SAPS.

On 19 March, Motsoaledi met with ambassadors from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Ethiopia (the home countries of most of the refugees), who said they were “ready to help” if repatriation does take place.

There is no timeline for the repatriation process as there’s no clarity on whether it will happen.

Repatriation is only on a voluntary basis and is dependent on whether it is safe to return to the country of origin.

South Africa is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees which contains the principle of non-refoulement, ie, protecting legitimate refugees from being forced to return to their countries of origin if it puts them in danger.

Committee member Qubudile Dyantyi emphasised that the temporary shelters at Bellville and Wingfield did not qualify as reintegration. Therefore, at this point local integration efforts had failed.

Motsoaledi concluded by arguing that the refugees were essentially not Home Affairs’ responsibility. South Africa’s refugee policy does not make provision for refugee camps, therefore the department doesn’t have an obligation to provide shelters and sustenance to the refugees. 

In other words, Home Affairs is not mandated to ensure the well-being of the refugees at the temporary shelters. DM