Windhoek
Minister of Home Affairs and Immigration Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana has said that Namibia currently hosts over 6 200 refugees and asylum seekers.
This is based on the results of a recent refugee profiling exercise, which revealed that 2 647 of the refugees are active while 3 561 are inactive.
Iivula-Ithana said inactive refugees are those not accounted for because they have moved out of the designated settlements and did not avail themselves to the recently held profiling exercise.
“Roughly, 80 percent of these refugees are Congolese, a few are from Rwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe and other countries with about 30 asylum seekers arriving at Namibian borders every month,” stated Iivula-Ithana.
She made these remarks at Osire refugee camp last Thursday during the commemoration of World Refugee Day, which was celebrated under the theme “Ordinary People Living Through Extra-Ordinary Times”, during which Lawrence Mgbangson, the UNHCR Country Representative, bade farewell, as the UN agency’s operations come to an end this month.
“When commemorating World Refugee Day people should revisit the common causes which generate refugees and engineer new philosophies and paradigm shifts towards the eradication of the manmade causes of human displacements, and further honouring the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who were forced to flee their homeland under threat of persecution, conflict and violence.
Therefore, the world at large needs to embrace the spirit of dialogue, democratic processes that are aimed at resolving human differences,” she stated.
Mgbangson said UNHCR is ending its operations because of the reduction in the refugee population, current emergencies in some parts of the world and Namibia’s regrading to a middle-income country, which has led to reduction in funding from donor countries referred to as donor fatigue.
“The capacity of the Namibian government has been greatly enhanced to be able to assume its international obligation towards refugees. Based on the above, the government and UNHCR then put in place conditions that led to the phasing down UNHCR operations in Namibia and eventually phasing out UNHCR presence in the country by end of this month,” stated Mgbangson.
He further said a plan of action policy has been established to see to it that UNHCR has a smooth exit and outlining some of the activities that need to be undertaken.
Some of the policies established are to complete the process of local integration of 2 400 refugees in Namibia, who were unable to return to Angola last year when some 3 000 Angolans were repatriated; introduce voucher system in order to give food and non-food assistance to the refugees; to assist government to open a liaison office in Katima Mulilo that will assist in processing applications for refugee status to new asylum seekers coming to Namibia and to use the office as a training centre for border officials of Angola, Botswana and Zambia to also monitor elements of human trafficking into Namibia.
UNHCR will continue to monitor the Namibian refugee situation from the UNHCR regional office in Pretoria, South Africa, and to give necessary support to the government to ensure Osire is transformed into a real settlement not for only refugees but also a settlement where Namibians from other parts of the country can resettle.
UNHCR has operated in Namibia for 23 years, since 1992 when the Osire refugee camp was established.