Refugee rights group Passop said an upcoming report by its “monitoring team” would help improve the treatment of refugees.
|||Cape Town - Refugee rights group People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (Passop) said on Sunday that the upcoming report by its “monitoring team” at Customs House refugee centre would help the Department of Home Affairs improve the treatment of refugees.
The refugee reception centre on the Cape Town Foreshore has been the site of clashes between asylum-seekers and security personnel over the past month. Spokesman Langton Miroyoga said on Sunday the monitoring team was in the second week of its work.
It will be releasing a detailed report in coming weeks, said Miroyoga.
The team has four monitors who check how the queueing refugees are treated.
Security guards and police have struggled to control the large numbers of refugees at Cape Town’s only reception centre over the past month.
Police have fired tear gas into the crowd and hosed queueing asylum seekers with water in an attempt to control crowds of hundreds.
The refugees have been queueing to have their documents processed following a call by the Department of Home Affairs.
The group said its monitors had already reported security staff “lashing out with batons… as they attempted to manage the large numbers of people”.
“Almost all of the people waiting at the centre reported verbal abuse from both security staff outside the centre and officials inside,” said the group
It said it had also observed bribery, as refuges try to reach the front of the queue.
Passop said the department should place more staff at the overcrowded centre. Home Affairs provincial head Yusuf Simons said he had been on leave and was only returning to work on Monday.
jan.cronje@inl.co.za
Cape Times