Eleventh-hour reprieve for Tutsi refugees

plight of the Biamungu* family, who are Tutsis from the DRC.

They had been forced to flee their country and ended up in a Zimbabwe refugee camp from which they also fled across the border at Musina, after beatings and threats on their lives by Hutus in the camp.

However, once in this country, they found themselves in a legal morass as they already had refugee status in Zimbabwe. They ended up being chased off the pavement, where they had camped out with other refugees until the beginning of June, and in the Kgosi Mampuru Prison, while their five children were taken away by social welfare.

Efforts by the Department of Home Affairs on Thursday to take the family to the embassy of the DRC and insist on their deportation flew in the face of principles and international law guiding the treatment of refugees, who should not be returned to a country they fled from to avoid persecution and where their lives may be in danger.

Yesterday, the imminent deportation was halted after Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Fatima Chohan was alerted.

Given that South Africa cannot give the family refugee status, as they already have such status in Zimbabwe, Chohan believed they had no option but to deport them.

But the family’s lawyer, Nyaradzo Chiwa, who has taken on their case pro bono, convinced Chohan that sending them to Zimbabwe could endanger them.

Yesterday, Chiwa was preparing to serve papers on the minister and director-general of Home Affairs, as well as the minister of police and director of deportations.

* The family name has been changed to protect them.