274 Durban refugees accept Lindela move as others stay at Stella Park

Two hundred and seventy four people who spent close to four months camped on the pavement outside the Department of Home Affairs offices in the Durban CBD have agreed to move to the Lindela Repatriation Centre in Krugersdorp, on the West Rand.

Five buses have already carried the first groups out of Glenwood in KwaZulu-Natal, according to reporting by eNCA. The department has confirmed the number who accepted the offer.

Not everyone has gone. A remaining group is still at Stella Park in Glenwood, and its members say the government has not put a long-term plan in front of them. That is the reason they give for staying put.

How the camp began

The group set up outside the department’s Durban offices after saying they were under threat in the communities where they had been living. They asked the state for protection.

Home Affairs went through the group and verified the individuals. It confirmed that they were legally in the country. That verification is the fact the whole standoff turns on, because it separates the people at Stella Park from anyone unlawfully present.

The relocation has been running for several months. Authorities have pointed to contraventions of municipal bylaws as the reason the camp could not remain on the pavement.

Why people are reluctant to board

The fear among those who have stayed is straightforward. Lindela is a repatriation centre, and people who agree to go there worry that the move ends in deportation rather than in the protection they asked for.

That concern is the reason the offer has split the group rather than cleared the camp. The people who accepted the buses are not necessarily less worried. They have simply decided that a bed and a roof beat another month on a Durban pavement.

The people still at Stella Park want to know what their status will be, where they will live, and what happens when the relocation process ends. They say they have not been told.

What the law allows, and what it does not

South Africa’s immigration law is enforced by the state. The Department of Home Affairs, the South African Police Service and the courts carry that authority. No group, no movement and no individual may enforce it, and no self-declared deadline or street campaign has any standing in law.

That cuts both ways. It means the people who camped at Stella Park could not be removed by a crowd, and it means the state is the only body that can decide where they go next. The decision to move them to Lindela is an administrative one, taken by the department, and it is the department that must answer for what follows.

Home Affairs has not said publicly what the long-term arrangement for the group will be. The department verified these individuals as legally present, and that verification is on the record.

What it costs the people involved

Nearly four months on a Durban pavement is a long time to be without a fixed address, and it is a long time to be without an answer. Schooling, clinic visits, work and documentation all depend on knowing where you will be next month.

The 274 who accepted the move now face a new set of questions in Gauteng, at a facility built for repatriation rather than for settlement. The group still at Stella Park faces the same questions in KwaZulu-Natal, with winter behind them and no date in front of them.

Both groups are waiting on the same thing, which is a written plan from the department that says what happens after the relocation, not only where the buses go.

Source: eNCA, Refugees divided over relocation offer after months on Durban streets