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Zimbabwe: SA sets up new refugee reception facility in Pretoria

by Tendai Hungwe

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa is setting up a new refugee reception centre in Pretoria to ease congestion at centres where foreign nationals, mainly Zimbabweans apply for asylum and refugee status, a government official told ZimOnline on Wednesday.

Home Affairs department spokesperson Siobhan McCarthy conceded that there was congestion at the country's refugee reception centres, particularly at Crown Mines in Johannesburg.

"The department is aware of the congestion at Crown Mines as well as other refugee reception centres," said McCarthy, adding; "To alleviate the pressure a new facility is currently being set up in Pretoria."

However, he could not say how many refugees and asylum seekers would be accommodated at the new centre.

South Africa's Home Affairs department is overwhelmed by an increasing number of asylum seekers, mostly Zimbabweans.

About 3 500 refugees are crammed at the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg from which at least 700 will be moved to a new site in Soweto and elsewhere in the central business district after a law firm housed near the church sought a court order for their eviction because they were polluting the area and affecting adjacent businesses.

The congestion at the refugee reception centres has resulted in some asylum seekers failing to renew their permits and facing possible arrest and deportation.

South Africa, which is struggling to meet the needs of more than a million Zimbabweans already in the country has, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW) resorted to "often unlawful" deportations, violating the most basic principle of refugee law, the right not to be forcibly returned to persecution.

McCarthy denied reports that they were no longer serving asylum seekers in Musina following the closure last month of a place in the border town where Zimbabweans queued up daily to apply for asylum and seek refuge.

"The facility in Musina has not been closed. We continue to process on average 350 applications (a day) for asylum from the Musina facility."

The refugee problem in South Africa worsened in recent months, primarily as a result of an influx of Zimbabweans fleeing economic and political crisis in the country.

According to HRW, during the last half of 2008 up to 30 000 Zimbabweans applied for asylum in Musina alone, indicating a huge surge in refugees fleeing poverty, disease and political repression amid an unprecedented economic meltdown north of the Limpopo.

An estimated three million Zimbabweans or a quarter of the country's 12 million people live outside the country, the majority in South Africa where chances of getting a job are higher and the standards of living better.

A unity government formed by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe in February has raised hopes Zimbabwe could finally end years of decline to regain its former status as a regional breadbasket.

Some reports suggest that hundreds of Zimbabwean teachers and other professionals have already started returning from neighbouring countries to take up their old jobs in the civil service where workers are earning US$100 per month - a reasonable sum for many of the professionals who had failed to secure proper jobs abroad.