Deporting of DRC family put on hold

A REFUGEE family from the DRC who spent months on a Pretoria pavement before the parents were arrested and their children placed in care have received a reprieve just hours after they were due to be deported.

This follows a report yesterday on the plight of the family, who are Tutsis from the DRC, including how they were forced to flee their country and ended up in a Zimbabwe refugee camp. They then fled across the border at Mussina after beatings and threats to their lives by Hutus in the camp.

Once in South Africa they found themselves in a legal morass as they already had refugee status in Zimbabwe and ended up being bounced from the pavement where they camped out with other refugees until the beginning of June and the Kgosi Mampuru prison while their five children were taken away by social welfare officials.

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

Yesterday their imminent deportation was halted after Deputy Home Affairs Minister Fatima Chohan was alerted to the situation. 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 to Zimbabwe.

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

Yesterday Chiwa was preparing to serve papers on the home affairs minister and director-general as well as the police minister and director of deportations to demand the release of the family, including their children and to halt any plan to deport them. Chohan meanwhile agreed to remand the family into the lawyer’s custody.

The family cannot be named for their own protection.