Afghan nationals denied SA entry despite ruling

South Africa's Department of Home Affairs refused 22 Afghanistan nationals entry into the country despite a court order that government should grant them asylum, reports TimesLIVE. The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) issued the order after a US NGO argued the group might be victimised by the Taliban. The department, which claimed it was notified of the pending court proceedings after the fact, is challenging the order. Reacting to the court's ruling, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said his office did not think this was a case of asylum seekers or refugees but a move by the US NGO to undermine SA’s sovereignty. He said this was not the first attempt by the same organisation to force the group into the country. He alleged that in 2021, the NGO sent a letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa and copied him and Minister of International Relations & Co-operation Naledi Pandor. Department spokesperson Siya Qoza said the court reserved judgment on Monday. Qoza said they understood the 22 had previously been in Zimbabwe but left for Zambia.

Talking to Newsroom Afrika, Motsoaledi said they believe the latest move was just ‘another trick’. Motsoaledi said when the US moved out of Afghanistan in 2021, it expressed concern that people who were working for the country may be victimised by the Taliban, reports TimesLIVE. He said a few weeks later his department received a letter from a lawyer in SA, who said she was acting on behalf of the US NGO. The lawyer told them to allow people who were arriving in SA entry to the country and said the NGO would pay for everything until the people were relocated to the US within six months. ‘We took serious offence to that letter. The letter goes on to lecture us about international obligations. We took offence and ignored them,’ he said. He said the department left the matter until it resurfaced on 16 February when a junior immigration official at the Beit bridge border post received a letter from a group of lawyers claiming to represent the 22. Motsoaledi said a bus arrived carrying 22 Afghans and three Americans who were coming to SA to apply for asylum. He said officials refused them entry but on Friday they arrived back at the border post with a court order instructing the department to let them in as a temporary measure. ‘We didn’t take them in. We stopped them at Beitbridge and the bus took them back to Harare,’ he said.