200 refugees, legally in SA, forced to join thousands camping outside Sherwood Hall

Thousands of immigrants are camped at Sherwood Hall. Photos: Joseph Bracken

• Since May, 200 refugees with documentation verified by Home Affairs were camped outside the Durban Home Affairs office seeking protection.
• But on Monday night, police told them to leave as they could not guarantee their safety during a planned March and March event on Tuesday.
• With nowhere else to go, the refugees joined thousands of immigrants camping outside Sherwood Hall, where a humanitarian crisis is unfolding.

A group of 200 documented refugees camping outside the Durban Home Affairs offices were forced to leave in the early hours of Monday morning, as police warned them they could not guarantee their safety from March and March supporters.

The refugees, mostly from the DRC, Rwanda, Uganda and Sudan, have been living there since 21 May, pleading for protection as anti-immigrant sentiment grows. Home Affairs officials verified their documents that they are in South Africa legally.

At 10pm on Monday night, police officers told the refugees to leave by 4am, as there was a planned March and March event on Tuesday.

It is unclear whether the event took place.

The state provided no transport, and local activists helped escort the group to a field at Sherwood Community Hall, where they joined a group of thousands of immigrants who have also fled for their safety.

News24 reports that, as of Tuesday, more than 8,000 people are camped inside and outside Sherwood Hall. Many of them are Malawian and Mozambican citizens who are asking to be repatriated.

The group of 200 refugees who were forced to leave the Home Affairs office in Durban, have been sleeping outside.

Yeshelen Govender, a civil society activist based in Durban who assisted the group, said that the local community has stepped in to prevent a humanitarian crisis at the hall.

“The tents that are here are from the local community. The toilets are from the local community. The only thing the state has done is post the police force around here,” she said.

“I’m from Goma [in the DRC]. I’m from the East, where there’s a war. What am I meant to do in that war?” asked Leanne Sefu, one of the refugees who had camped at the Home Affairs offices.

She said the South African government has not been able to keep them safe.

“We were still hoping to see that maybe we could get help from the government, but there’s no hope now,” she said.

Whilst camped outside of the Home Affairs offices, the refugee group were intimidated and threatened multiple times by March and March supporters, said Sefu.

Sefu said municipal and Home Affairs officials told them to go back to their homes or to Lindela, a repatriation facility in Krugersdorp, even though they are in South Africa legally.

Those who tried to go back to their homes were threatened, and some were even assaulted, she said.

KwaZulu-Natal Premier Thami Ntuli visited the hall on Tuesday morning.

Luthando Ngubane, spokesperson for the Ethekwini Municipality, said Malawians at Sherwood are being deported. “However, the process has been slower than anticipated due to the lengthy processes of dealing with each migrant on an individual basis,” she said.

A temporary priority court for immigration has been established at the Sherwood site to accelerate the process and issue deportation orders. The mayor is engaging with the Department of Justice to establish two more sites for refugees.

To date, four buses carrying deportees have departed the site en route to Malawi, with six more set to depart soon, said Ngubane.

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