Thursday, April 16, 2015
MANZINI – The country is concerned by the high number of Somali asylum seekers who have been flocking into Swaziland in the past month.
However, nothing can be done to prevent or stop asylum seekers from seeking refuge in Swaziland as the country is duty-bound to provide assistance through the signed UN Conventions and Protocols regarding refugees.
This was relayed by the Commissioner of Refugees, Thandi Dlamini, when interviewed.
She said the numerous refugees fleeing xenophobic attacks from nearby South Africa could not be turned back. She said almost every day, there were new arrivals at the Malindza Reception Centre seeking to stay in the country as refugees.
This is amid all the unrest that is currently taking place in neighbouring South Africa, where foreign nationals have been brutally burnt to death and their shops looted in townships at Kwamashu in Durban by angry South Africans, who want them out of the country.
Further up in Kenya, extremist group al-Shabaab gunmen killed 148 people at the country’s Garissa College University last week.
This has also had major repercussions for 400 000 Somali refugees as the government in that country has ordered the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to relocate them back to their country within three months.
Dlamini said the horrific reports were causing the country to be uneasy when receiving asylum seekers at Malindza, especially those from Somalia. She said there was no way officials could detect the real reason an asylum seeker came to the country or what their intentions were.
“We have read with concern reports in the media of terrorist attacks in Kenya and we are also wary of being targeted by extremist groups for providing shelter for fleeing Somalis.”