South Africa has seen a ”phenomenal increase” in the number of asylum seekers in the past few years, the Department of Home Affairs said on Thursday.
”South Africa has become a safe haven for thousands of individuals from all over the world who are forced to flee their own communities or countries because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution,” said Gzinumzi Ntlakana, acting Deputy Director General of Home Affairs.
Although there are only 29 000 people with refugee status living in the country, there are 103 410 outstanding asylum applications.
People fleeing from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Somalia make up almost 50% of those awaiting the outcome of refugee-status applications.
”The influx of asylum seekers, lack of capacity and inadequate availability of resources to facilitate the registration of asylum seekers has created a backlog of applications that runs over 100 000.
”These have resulted, in some instances, in unlawful arrests, detention and deportation of legitimate applicants,” Ntlakana said.
The department hopes to eradicate the backlog within the next year.
Temporary offices have been opened in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape and 178 contract staff appointed to deal with the problem.
In addition, a toll-free hotline, on 0800 733 843, has been set up for asylum seekers and refugees to track the progress of their applications. — Sapa