Windhoek
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration, Patrick Nandago, says the remaining 908 refugees being hosted at the Dukwe refugee camp in Botswana must return home and re-join their families.
He said the repatriation of the refugees is really working, hence the remaining refugees should come back home.
Further, he said, about 12 of the remaining 908 refugees have applied for clearance with the ministry for their immediate return. Five of the 12 are already cleared and are in Namibia. The remaining seven are still waiting for their applications to be approved before they rejoin their families.
New Era was reliably informed that although many of the remaining refugees do want to come back home, there is a lot of intimidation in the camp which instils fear among the people that they will be “arrested” upon their return.
Botswana’s Defence, Justice and Security Minister, Shaw Kgathi, was recently quoted as saying the Namibian refugees would be asked to leave the country that has hosted them for 17 years.
This means the refugee status of Namibians who fled to Botswana in 1999 in the wake of the failed attempt to secede the then Caprivi Region from the rest of the country will be null and void on the set date.
“If they do not voluntarily leave the country by December 31, their status will change to illegal immigrant and we will hand them to the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs,” Kgathi was quoted as saying.
In this regard, Nandago said it is the prerogative of the Botswana government to change the refugees’ status to illegal immigrants after December 31, but said people should come home before the succession clause is invoked.
More than 3 000 people fled Namibia to Botswana in 1999 in the wake of the failed Caprivi secession attempt.
Nandago urged Namibians to make use of the voluntary repatriation process supervised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Recently, thirteen Namibians living at the Dukwe refugee camp in Botswana arrived in Namibia on a ‘come and see, go and tell’ mission but were deported with immediate effect.
The mission, which was supposed to last four days, was brought to an abrupt halt after the group started advancing ideas to secede the Zambezi Region from the rest of Namibia and campaigned for people to join the effectively banned United Democratic Party (UDP).