They left Johannesburg in the dead of night, in search of yet another refuge. A group of 92 Somalis, including pregnant women and children, decided it was better to face a Botswana jail than risk being killed in a South African township.
The refugees slipped out of the Carroll Shaw Memorial Centre, west of Randfontein, late on Monday. They had been housed at the temporary shelter since early March, when the Klerksoord refugee camp in Akasia was closed by the city of Tshwane and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Speaking on behalf of the group, Rashid (not his real name) told the Mail & Guardian that the group felt “targeted”, not only by local communities but by the Metro police. He said his friends had lost confidence in the reintegration process because the South African government had failed to “control its people and stop them from killing us”. Botswana, he said, was their last hope — even though they had no guarantee of what would happen once they got there.
Early on Tuesday morning the group reached the Mafikeng border post. Rashid says South African immigration officials let them through, without questioning their lack of papers. But home affairs spokesperson Joseph Mohajane told the M&G that the group had “flouted immigration laws” and could now face prosecution.
The Somalis remained in the no-man’s-land between South Africa and Botswana for 11 hours, without food or water. As darkness fell South African officials escorted them back across the border and took them to a police station in Mafikeng.
UNHCR spokesperson Sanda Kimbimbi said that a representative would go to Mafikeng on Thursday to try to convince the refugees that “it was in their best interest” to return to Randfontein.
They may take some persuading. Rashid and his friends cannot easily forget the experiences of other Somali refugees in South Africa — such as 30-year-old shop owner Mohammed Abdi, who was shot dead at his shop in Kwanobuhle, Eastern Cape, last year, or Sacdiyo Macali, who miscarried after staff at the Mitchells Plain Community Health Centre in Cape Town refused to treat her.
Kimbimbi said South Africa is still a “major country of asylum on the African continent” and most refugees feel “secure” here. Rashid felt differently: “We’re Africans and we don’t want problems with our African brothers. Let us go.”
